Special Delivery
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Sequel to Deliver Me. After their harrowing experience, Kurt H. and Sebastian S. finally get to start the lives they really want, and they start by taking a long, deserved vacation together. Unfortunately, a couple of bumps turn up along the way that might threaten to tear their new fairy tale apart. Will it be enough to end them, or will it bring them closer together?
1. Prologue

Sebastian was just not helping. It wasn't that he outright refused to pack up their things or bring them to the car, but every time Kurt tried to get the two of them ready to leave - finally out of the hotel and on the road - Sebastian did something, anything, to slow him down.

"Sebastian, could you hand me that last suitcase?" Kurt asked as he tried to pack what was left of their shirts and jeans. But all thoughts of the suitcase were immediately abandoned, however, when Sebastian got on his knees, popped open Kurt's fly, and started eagerly blowing his boyfriend.

"Sebastian," Kurt moaned, finding himself on his back on the bed for the fifth time that day. "Sebastian, we have to get goi-_oh_ God, yes! Yes! Just like that!"

"Mm-hmm," Sebastian murmured in agreement as he wrapped his tongue around Kurt's erection and stroked. Sebastian knew every way possible to make Kurt fall apart, and he intended on taking advantage of it for as long as possible. It didn't matter to Sebastian that half of the time he stripped Kurt naked and went down on him, the door to their hotel room was wide open, or that every article of clothing waiting to be packed lay in neat piles beneath them as Kurt writhed and moaned. Those things concerned Kurt, not Sebastian. Sebastian had become a single-minded monster, and his thoughts all too often strayed down Kurt's pants.

By late afternoon, the Porsche was finally packed up and ready to go, but Sebastian had Kurt laid out on the hotel bed, naked in the sunlight streaming in from the open window. Sebastian sat between Kurt's legs with Kurt's legs wrapped around his hips while Sebastian simply touched him, stroked him, fondled him, ran a hand over his abs and then a single finger tickling along the trail of hair that led back down. Kurt had stopped arguing with Sebastian, instead surrendering to his insistent mouth and his talented hands.

Kurt rolled his head back and forth on the mattress, humming contentedly beneath his lover's touch. He hovered just beyond the reach of cumming. He peeked up at Sebastian, figuring his sadistic boyfriend was smirking at him, taking pleasure in the sweet agony he was inflicting. But Sebastian's eyes stared off in the distance, his thoughts miles away.

"Sebastian," Kurt moaned, trying to bring his mind back to the present. "Sebastian, tell me what's wrong."

Sebastian's eyes flicked down to meet his boyfriend's worried gaze, his cocky smile sliding back into place.

"Nothing's wrong, gorgeous," he said, slipping over Kurt's stretched-out body, kissing a trail along the way. Kurt frowned, looping his arms behind Sebastian's neck when he came within reach.

"You've been stalling all day," Kurt said, giggling when Sebastian nibbled lightly on a ticklish spot. "I'm starting to think that maybe you don't want to meet my dad." Kurt pouted, sticking out his lower lip and opening his eyes comically wide. Sebastian looked back up at him and laughed.

"As exciting as meeting your dad sounds," Sebastian said, grabbing Kurt's lower lip between his thumb and index finger and pinching it playfully, "it's not that."

Kurt raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Really, it's not," Sebastian remarked. "It's just…after all that's happened, we finally have this time together. I just don't want to waste a minute of it. I want us to be together, all the time, in every way…"

Sebastian kissed Kurt with those words. Kurt sighed, the gentle sound brushing past his lips, and Sebastian breathed him in.

Kurt pulled away, opening his mouth to speak, but Sebastian quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, quieting him.

"But, I know you want to see your dad. I know how much you miss him. I know you're eager to get to Ohio, so…let me just make love to you one last time, and I promise we'll go."

Kurt smiled behind Sebastian's hand, placing a kiss to his palm. Sebastian removed his hand from Kurt's mouth to let him answer.

"One more time," Kurt conceded, "but I get to make love to you this time."

"Ooo," Sebastian said, "even better." He grabbed Kurt around the waist and flipped them over so he was lying on his back with Kurt straddling his hips. "Have at me, big boy."

* * *

><p>Sebastian watched Kurt go over the room three more times, looking through drawers and wardrobes, even into dressers Sebastian knew they didn't use, before he declared it clean, and gave them the thumbs up to leave. By the time they checked out of the hotel, the sun had started to set. Sebastian rushed to his car, finally looking forward to getting on the road and having the wind whipping around them through the open windows. He loved driving his Porsche and he loved Kurt. Having Kurt <em>in<em> his Porsche would be its own heaven.

Sebastian practically skipped over to the passenger door and unlocked it, holding it open for Kurt with a gallant low bow. Kurt laughed, sliding into the leather car seat.

"Thank you, sir," Kurt said. Sebastian winked, closing in for a kiss.

"Uh-uh, none of that," Kurt said against his lips, "or we'll never get out of here."

"Oh, I fully intend on blowing you in this car," Sebastian informed him, "just not in the underground parking lot of a hotel. I do have some taste."

"Well, thank goodness," Kurt said, laughing, his lips still pressed against Sebastian's.

Sebastian heard his phone ringing in his pocket and he nearly jumped to answer it. Kurt knew it could only be one person, and he watched Sebastian curiously as he fished the phone out. Sebastian looked at the screen of his phone anyway, smirking at the name flashing across the screen.

"Just one more second, gorgeous," Sebastian said, closing Kurt's door carefully and answering the call.

"Hey, bro. What's up?" Sebastian asked, making his way around the rear of the car to the driver's side door. "You keeping tabs on us? Making sure that we're leaving on time?"

"Well, we're all excited to meet this amazing man of yours," Richard laughed half-heartedly. Sebastian laughed back, but he caught the twinge of sadness in his brother's voice. Richard's laugh died out, changing into an awkward silence.

"So, what's up?" Sebastian coaxed. "I really would like to get on the road."

"Uh, I just wanted to know when we can expect you," Richard said. It sounded a bit like a lie...or an omission.

"We're going to hit Kurt's dad's place in Lima first," Sebastian said, leaning his hip against the car. He knew Kurt was watching him through the car window, but he didn't make eye contact, needing to concentrate on what his brother had to say. "Then we'll head to Westerville so, I don't know, four or five days."

"Oh…okay."

Another awkward silence followed, and Sebastian felt like he was missing something, something he was meant to know.

"Richard…" Sebastian felt a knot tie in his stomach at the sound of resignation in his own voice. He didn't like all of this beating about the bush. "What's going on?"

Richard swallowed so hard that Sebastian heard it.

"I really think I should tell you when you get…"

"Please, Richard!" Sebastian interrupted gruffly. "Don't string me along. I'm a long ways away from home, so please…just tell me what's going on."

Richard sighed. Sebastian held his breath, bracing himself for the worst.

"It's mom," Richard said quietly. "She's getting worse, and dad…" Richard paused, breathing a longer, heavier sigh, "he wants to put her into a home."


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: **_Now that Sebastian has his money back, we are going to start seeing a return of sort-of snarky Sebastian, but he's still going to be the same hopeless romantic we've all grown to love. As a side note, for any ACITW fans, I am writing an AU ending to that story (with permission from Cacophonylights). If you are interested, you can find it posted on tumblr in the ACITW tag, or on my LiveJournal (fmhartz91). _

Sebastian's Porsche Cayman S was, in Kurt's humble opinion, a masterpiece of precision engineering, and by far, the sexiest car on the road. The 3.4-liter flat-six purred (some people might say like a kitten, but Kurt thought it sounded more like the guttural growl Sebastian made when Kurt went down on him), and when Sebastian hit the gas the car shot off like a rocket. Of course like any true sports car aficionado, Sebastian had gotten the six-speed manual transmission, and it was all Kurt could do to keep from staring with his mouth slack-jawed every time Sebastian grabbed the stick and downshifted.

Kurt was absolutely, 100% certain that he had moaned out loud at least twice.

Sebastian's car – no, this beast that he controlled with his body, since Sebastian seemed to be one with this powerful machine – had been given what was dubbed 'the black treatment'. Porsche enthusiasts described it as being the color of evil, but to Kurt it was more like the color of sin, especially since Sebastian had gone the extra mile to have the seats reupholstered in red leather. Kurt could see all the extra goodies inside and out: navigation, xenon headlights, an upgraded Bose stereo system. When Sebastian was feeling a little more conversational, Kurt needed to ask if he had sprung for the carbon-ceramic brakes and an adaptive suspension as well.

Back in high school, working part-time in his dad's shop in the culturally deficient town of Lima, Ohio, Kurt never got the chance to work on a real luxury import. No, the residents of their little township were more the fifteen-years-older-than-the-Pantheon-and-held-together-by-a-layer-of-rust Chevy pickup type.

Kurt wondered how much time he would need to spend begging, most likely on his knees, to get Sebastian to let him take a peek 'under the hood', so to speak. Not that he would need to, of course. Sebastian would let him look no matter what. Kurt knew that already.

But asking could be fun.

Just sitting in this ridiculously opulent Porsche, hearing the engine, smelling the leather, watching Sebastian shift gears, his hand almost always resting with his fingers wrapped loosely around the knob of the gear shit, made Kurt impossibly hard. He shifted in his seat, trying to find a less obvious way of relieving his discomfort than pushing the heel of his hand into his crotch, or disregarding tact altogether, unzipping his pants, and stroking himself…or maybe asking Sebastian to do it for him while they sped along, careening over the highway like they owned it, caressing the rises and dips in the road, the motion of the car doing all the work as Sebastian just held him…

Kurt thanked whatever spaghetti monster existed in the stars above that Sebastian hadn't opted for the PDK seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, or he would have been done a long time ago.

Any other time and Kurt knew that Sebastian would be into it. Wasn't he talking just a few hours ago about how he would definitely blow Kurt in this car? The idea seemed gauche before, but now, Kurt ached for it – ached to be teased, wanted a promise of something dirty wrapped in a carefully veiled innuendo, layered with Sebastian's unique charm and that way he had of always making Kurt feel special and loved.

Kurt was hard and wanting and longed to share this moment with his boyfriend; but Sebastian's mind was a million miles away, his eyes staring intently at the road ahead, barely darting to the side when he changed lanes, almost intentionally ignoring Kurt but not since every once in a while his hand would drift to Kurt's knee, brushing against it purposefully, as if to reassure himself that his boyfriend was still there.

That light touch, that whisper soft brush of his fingertips over Kurt's jeans, raised a little red flag.

Sebastian needed Kurt for comfort, but from what?

Sebastian didn't tell Kurt what Richard had wanted when he got off the phone with his brother. In fact, his quiet unnerved Kurt. Sebastian's jaw clenched and his eyes filled with unexpressed emotion, he started the car, and peeled out of the parking garage, driving straight for the on ramp to the interstate. They drove for over an hour in silence, and in that time Kurt felt them accelerate steadily, faster and faster until Kurt sincerely began to fear for their safety.

Kurt decided this eerie cold shoulder had gone on long enough. He cleared his throat, hoping to be heard without needing to scream over the sound of wind rushing by outside.

"Um…we'll make amazing time if we keep going at, uh…" Kurt leaned over Sebastian's shoulder and took a peek at the speedometer. He swallowed hard when he caught sight of the reading on the gauge. "140 miles per hour…but do you know what would be super awesome? If we got there alive."

Sebastian blinked, momentarily dislodged from his stupor. Clouded green eyes flicked down to the gauges on the dash. His eyes widened slightly, apparently unaware that he had been speeding quite so much. Then, his gaze traveled over to Kurt's face, smiling supportively regardless of his current unnatural pallor, and the way his fingers dug into his knees, gripping hard until the skin over his knuckles stretched and became white.

"I'm sorry." Sebastian sighed, blowing a long, resigned breath through pursed lips, his entire body trying to relax as he pressed on the brakes, slowing the car's speed to a respectable 90 mph. Kurt relaxed, confident that their lives were no longer in danger, but apart from a mournful sounding, "I'm sorry," Sebastian didn't seem inclined to talk about whatever was bothering him.

That worried Kurt. If Sebastian wasn't talking, then whatever the problem was must be something tremendous. It all stemmed from that phone call; of this fact Kurt was certain.

"Sebastian…" Kurt started gently, "please…pull over for a minute."

Sebastian responded only with his eyes, giving Kurt a sidelong glance as he changed lines, moving across the highway until they were driving on the shoulder of the road, rolling to a stop. Kurt watched Sebastian down shift some more, locking his legs hard at the knees to keep any hint of arousal at bay. It was difficult enough trying to calm his hard-on while they were driving, though a healthy fear of dying in a fiery car crash goes a long way towards killing a boner.

Sebastian turned the key in the ignition and shut off the engine, but he didn't turn to face Kurt. Instead, he kept his eyes glued on the stretch of dirt embankment straight ahead of them, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if it was an anchor keeping him grounded. Kurt could hear it creak beneath Sebastian's hands as he wrung it tight in his grip.

"Sebastian…" Kurt reached out a hand and put it on Sebastian's knee, feeling the tension in Sebastian's leg bleed away at his touch. Kurt smiled. At least they had that, that connection that fed off each other, love and comfort passing between them through something as slight as a touch, a smile, a kiss...

"Sebastian," Kurt repeated, and this time Sebastian did turn to look at him, ducking his head a little and regarding him with eyes that looked worn out and tired. "Please, tell me what's bothering you."

Another defeated sigh.

Kurt could almost feel Sebastian's sorrow. It was a tangible thing floating in the air between them.

"I…" Sebastian took a deep breath, throttling the steering wheel hard enough to burn the skin on his palms from the friction. "I can't, Kurt. Not right now."

"Why not, sweetheart?" Kurt pleaded. "You know you can tell me anything."

"I know," Sebastian said, his head dropping a bit further. Kurt could hear the burden of guilt evident in the tone of his voice. "I want to tell you, gorgeous. And I promise I will. I just can't right now. Not when I have to drive for another four hours. I just can't afford to think about it."

_'I can drive!'_ a squeaky voice erupted in the back of Kurt's mind, and Kurt chastised himself silently over his enthusiasm at Sebastian being too overwhelmed with whatever was bothering him to be able to drive.

"I understand," Kurt said instead, unbuckling his seat belt and moving closer to his boyfriend, resting his head on Sebastian's shoulder. "I just want you to remember that you can talk to me about anything."

Sebastian looked down into Kurt's face, blue eyes shining up at him, reflecting the dim light from the dash. Sebastian's face looked so drawn, so weighed down, it broke Kurt's heart.

"You and me against the world, right?" Kurt whispered. "You jump, I jump?"

Sebastian's expression shifted, a touch of pain furrowing his brow, so Kurt batted his eyelashes coquettishly, his grin growing wide and slightly cartoonish. Sebastian stared at Kurt for just a beat longer, then he smiled, warm and genuine and much less tainted by the anxiety he felt. It was the smile Kurt had been missing. Kurt never wanted to be without that smile.

"I'm sorry I've been kind of a drag." Sebastian leaned forward, placing a chaste kiss to the top of Kurt's head, breathing in deep to appreciate his two favorite smells – Kurt's favorite vanilla scented shampoo; and the leather car seats that never ceased to remind him of all the times he sat in this car, driving with no destination, just longing to feel carefree. But it was Kurt's scent - that soothing mixture of sweet and masculine, with the subtle fire that Sebastian knew simmered just beneath the surface of Kurt's skin -that stirred something inside him, and suddenly he felt like he couldn't get their asses to Ohio fast enough.

"It's alright," Kurt reassured him, leaning into Sebastian's chest to feel the beat of his boyfriend's heart against his temple. The sound of Sebastian's heartbeat had become a safety blanket for Kurt. Every so often he needed to hear it, strong and sure, unfaltering. So many nightmares Kurt had surrounded that sickening slump of Sebastian's heart when Chandler had tased him, when Sebastian almost died trying to protect Kurt…when Sebastian almost died and Kurt nearly lost everything. "It's just, well, I'm really enjoying riding around in your sexy little sports car…"

Sebastian smirked, his heart speeding just a bit at Kurt's playfully naïve voice referring to his Porsche as a 'sexy little sports car'. Sebastian knew Kurt, knew about his extensive knowledge of automobiles and all of the time he spent in his dad's shop fixing cars. Sebastian knew that Kurt was just itching to get his hands on it, even if he hadn't outright said anything yet. Kurt probably knew the specs of Sebastian's car better than he did, and yet he called it a 'sexy little sports car'.

Kurt playing innocent in Sebastian's sexy little sports car made Sebastian burn to have him, hot and panting, breathless and begging. He wrapped an arm around Kurt's shoulders, pulling him as close as he conceivably could with the gear shift between them.

"You know," Sebastian purred, nuzzling his nose into Kurt's soft hair, running his cheek over it to feel the strands tickle his skin, "I happened to notice just how much you seem to enjoy riding around in my sexy little sports car."

Kurt's body went rigid, a red flush of embarrassment climbing up his neck and coloring his face. He didn't think he'd been obvious (well, except for maybe the moan, but he was certain Sebastian was too preoccupied to notice), and even though he wanted Sebastian to know, wanted Sebastian to play with him even, the idea of being caught crucified Kurt. He suddenly pictured himself shrinking down to almost nothing, crawling out of the car window and scurrying away into the night.

"I…I didn't think you were paying attention," Kurt confessed. "You seemed so focused, I thought…"

"I might have zoned out a little, gorgeous," Sebastian said, "but not enough to miss the way you kept crossing and uncrossing your legs…or the way you fidget with your hands gripping yours thighs…" While he spoke, Sebastian ran his fingertips up the length of Kurt's arm, feeling his way from the scar on Kurt's right wrist, stopping momentarily to circle the fulcrum of his elbow, and feeling his way up to his shoulder, delighting in the way Kurt trembled beneath his touch.

Sebastian lowered his voice as he continued, words tumbling from his lips one by one to glide across Kurt's already goose bump laden skin.

"Or that breathy little moan of yours…" Sebastian's index finger trailed lazily up the length of Kurt's neck, tracing up along the delicate outer shell of Kurt's ear, and then traveling back to his collarbone. "It's like music to me," Sebastian whispered, feeling Kurt's breath hitch in his throat, his hand squeezing Sebastian's knee, kneading and scratching as the silvery seduction of Sebastian's voice started to affect him.

"I hear it when you sleep…"

Sebastian brought his other hand up to Kurt's shoulder and started to massage the muscles there, caressing and kneading. Kurt's eyes drifted shut as Sebastian continued to talk and touch him, giving himself a moment to forget that they were pulled over on the side of the highway and not back at the hotel, naked after a decadent warm bath, just getting ready for a night of worshipping each other in bed.

"I hear it when I kiss you…"

Sebastian slid down in his seat, following the graceful line of Kurt's neck with a brush of his lips until he found a spot at the juncture of Kurt's neck and his shoulder and sucked gently, searching out that beautiful moan of Kurt's for a reward.

"I love hearing it, gorgeous," Sebastian admitted when he felt Kurt come close…so close. "What do I have to do to get you to do it again?"

Sebastian's hands massaged their way down the front of Kurt's chest. Kurt leaned back against him, exposing himself to the delicious sensation of Sebastian's hands on his body. Sebastian wasted no time, bringing his hands to rest in Kurt's lap, smiling against Kurt's skin when he found his boyfriend hard, pressed painfully against the waistband of his insanely tight jeans. Nimble fingers undid the buttons of the fly one at a time, slowly relieving the pressure of an hour spent lingering in varying degrees of turned on to incredibly turned on; between half-hard and my God! What haven't I cum yet?

Kurt sighed, happy to have his boyfriend back, knowing that whatever small tumor of dismay had lodged itself into his brain and occupied almost every last thought for the entire drive so far could be cast aside by Kurt's eyes, his smile, his breathy moans, his body…and most of all, his love.

Sebastian's hands were on Kurt's skin now, searing hot as they caressed Kurt's length on both sides, massaging back and forth in tandem. Kurt threw his head back further into Sebastian's shoulder and moaned.

"There it is."

Sebastian couldn't help but moan himself, feeling his boyfriend surrender to his touch. Poor Kurt, Sebastian thought. He had been waiting like this for so long. As soon as they found a hotel for the night, he'd have to make it up to him properly, but there was no time like the present for a minor amount of compensation at least.

Sebastian continued to stroke Kurt slowly, enjoying the way Kurt's moans caught in his throat, the way his hips fought not to undulate so he could absorb the bliss of two hands around him and not risk disrupting Sebastian's flow.

"You know, gorgeous…as long as we're stopped…"

Kurt turned his head and fixed his eyes on his boyfriend. Sebastian could see the need in Kurt's eyes, lust-blown pupils crowding out the sapphire of his irises. Sebastian winked, grinning slyly at the comical look of dawning comprehension, and maybe a touch of raw need, that radiated from his flushed face.

"What? Here?" Kurt looked around them as if confirming that yes indeed they were in Sebastian's Porsche parked on the interstate.

Sebastian glanced down at Kurt's crotch and licked his lips, a look of unabashed desire growing to match Kurt's.

"What do _you_ think?"

Sebastian's voice, rough and gravelly, awakened in Kurt a compulsion he would never be able to ignore. It was a longing to belong to Sebastian, to always belong to Sebastian; and not because Sebastian was demanding or domineering, not because he forced and took. Quite on the contrary. Kurt wanted to belong to Sebastian because Sebastian gave to Kurt – love, pleasure, his heart, his mind – without reservation.

This was all so new to Kurt, being with a man who had no selfish or ulterior motives, no desire for control, no violent intentions, no insecurities that would drive him immediately into another man's bed. But as much as they knew each other, Kurt had to admit that they had what many people might consider a relatively short relationship.

Was it dangerous to lose his heart so completely this fast?

Was it even possible?

Kurt took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts and any trace of doubt aside. That's what this vacation was all about, after all – answering questions and learning about each other.

Now wasn't the time for these questions, though, with Sebastian's persistent hands moving so torturously slow over and around Kurt's cock. He could probably manage to keep Kurt hovering at the edge of just enough for as long as he wanted, waiting as he was for the okay to flip Kurt around and bury his face in Kurt's crotch.

"Come on, gorgeous," Sebastian pleaded, "let me go down on you. I promise…it'll put me in a much better mood…to swallow you whole…to taste heaven…"

How was Kurt going to say no to that? He'd have to be crazy to even think of rejecting Sebastian's offer.

Especially in a motherfucking Porsche!

Sebastian's hands found a way to dip lower, gentle fingers fondling Kurt's balls, and Kurt, so eager to be right where Sebastian wanted him, begging and sweating with Sebastian's tongue stroking him, couldn't wait any longer.

"Yes," Kurt stammered. "Yes, Sebastian! Yes, please…"

Kurt kept muttering, his broken voice filling the car, a beautiful symphony to Sebastian's ears as he grabbed Kurt's legs and turned him around in his seat. They were a little starved for space in the front seat of the lavish car, but Sebastian could care less, zeroing in on his prize with a dark and hungry expression in his green eyes. Kurt settled back against the leather panel of the car door. Sebastian pulled his Harvard sweatshirt seemingly out of nowhere, folding it into a pillow and setting it behind Kurt's head where it would otherwise lean painfully against the glass. He kissed Kurt on the mouth, soft and gentle, albeit a little impatient, before dropping his head down into Kurt's lap, inhaling Kurt's cock completely in one swift, single motion.

Kurt lurched up with a loud, choked sound that was equal parts surprise and ecstasy, arms flailing out to grab at something, anything in the car surrounding them. One hand grabbed hold of the dash and the other at the back of his car seat, struggling not to curl his fingers and mar the sumptuous leather with his nails.

"Do you like that?" Sebastian asked with long, languorous licks from base to head, not completely leaving Kurt's cock unattended in order to talk and tease. "Do you like my mouth on you, gorgeous?"

"Yes," Kurt moaned, as Sebastian continued to lick, the flat of his tongue bathing Kurt slowly until he reached the tip, fluttering beneath the head and dipping along the slit, gathering the moisture that started to collect there. Sebastian lapped greedily whenever it appeared, enjoying the taste of Kurt in his mouth.

He'd never lie to Kurt.

Kurt did taste like heaven, sweet and salty with something else that was distinctly Kurt, something potent, something Sebastian had begun to crave, like the angel's share of whiskey that escapes the barrel and no mere mortal ever has the honor to taste. That was Kurt to Sebastian. He was the angel's share. He wanted to savor Kurt, even though he was well aware that they might not be in the safest place imaginable, but so little mattered when he needed this, because the only thing that was going to get him through the next couple of days of stress - meeting Kurt's dad, and coming face to face with his own – was this drug of Kurt writhing underneath him, his cock heavy on his tongue, and all of those addictive whimpers that burrowed their way beneath Sebastian's skin, fused themselves with his blood, and flooded his body with an unquenchable fire.

Kurt's whole body thrummed throughout every fiber with a need to move, to buck up into Sebastian's mouth, to have more, but Sebastian clamped his hands onto Kurt's thighs like a vice and held his legs down hard to the seats, almost to the point of pain, but not quite. Kurt was at Sebastian's complete mercy, and his talented mouth was as cruel as it was kind, sucking hard around him, then disappearing completely, leaving Kurt a victim to the chill in the air, just to return with long licks, or delicate traces that outlined every vein. Kurt became desperate, willing to barter anything just to cum, almost to the point of tearing his own hair out in fistfuls.

"Please, Sebastian," Kurt whined, his legs quivering uncontrollably with his need to cum. His voice didn't sound like his own, debauched and sinful, even to his own ears. "Please, I want to cum, baby. Let me cum…"

His voice drifted away, but the mumbling continued – pleas punctuated by whispered moans and Kurt repeating just his name.

"Sebastian…Sebastian…Sebastian…God, Sebastian…"

The sound of his name on Kurt's lips affected him, always affected him. It brought out the animal in Sebastian, and he devoured Kurt, his own cock straining in the confines of his jeans and throbbing for attention, but not from him. Every inch of him needed Kurt's touch, wanted nothing but Kurt's mouth, and for that, Sebastian was willing to wait.

Sebastian suddenly felt a burning desire to leave, to take Kurt to the first hotel he could find and have his way with him, take him apart slowly, lay him out like an offering and make him cum over and over again. Then they'd spend the night curled together, limbs tangled beneath cheap cotton sheets and every worry forgotten until morning.

Sebastian released the grip on Kurt's legs and they fell open wider. Sebastian snaked his hands beneath Kurt's ass and kneaded the taut flesh, pulling Kurt up to meet him, driving him deeper down his throat.

The chant of Sebastian's name on Kurt's lips became one long sound, somewhere between a word and a moan, until it disappeared entirely, and Kurt was cumming hot in Sebastian's mouth; Sebastian held Kurt tight against him so he could have him, take every bit of him.

"Oh, Sebastian," Kurt murmured, his hips still stuttering, his heart just a single beat, his entire body vibrating. "I…"Kurt could see an unusual brightness behind his eyelids, more than just the occasional passing of a car driving by. This light, white and blinding, seemed to grow brighter. Kurt blinked his eyes, trying to find the source, assuming a passing motorist might have seen them parked on the side of the road and assumed they were in trouble…that was, until Kurt saw a flashing staccato of blue and red mixed with the white, and his blood went cold.

"Sebastian…" Kurt whispered urgently. "Sebastian, I think we're being pulled over."

"We can't be pulled over," Sebastian explained, licking the last of Kurt from his rapidly softening cock. "We're not driving."

"Well, tell that to the cop that just pulled up behind us!" Kurt said in a panic, slapping Sebastian's back where it bowed over his lap.

Sebastian groaned, more frustrated and annoyed than worried about the officer that had just stolen what had promised to be a good five minutes of afterglow, sitting with a sated Kurt in his arms, grinning like a giddy fool and telling Sebastian how much he loved him.

"Alright," Sebastian muttered angrily, sitting up and adjusting his jeans, his own hard-on heading for the hills. He watched Kurt fumble with his jeans, shaking fingers struggling to do up the buttons of his fly.

Kurt wasn't fond of police officers. His experiences with them hadn't been all that positive as of late.

"It's going to be okay," Sebastian soothed, replacing Kurt's hands with his own and quickly slipping the buttons back into their respective holes. "We didn't do anything wrong. Worse comes to worse, we'll probably just get a ticket."

Kurt nodded, but the sound of his quiet sniffling nearly broke Sebastian's heart, and he was ready to jump down to throat of any swaggering asshole who might try to throw their power around. Sebastian wanted to pull Kurt into a quick hug to help calm him down, but he heard heavy footsteps approach. He turned the key to the auxiliary position and lowered the car window, squinting as he peered into the rear view mirror. He breathed a slight sigh of relief when he finally saw past the glare of the light trained on the car and a female officer appeared into view. Sebastian hoped that Kurt would feel more at ease with them being questioned by a female police officer. If nothing else, maybe a dash of his patented Sebastian Smythe charm might help grease the wheels.

The officer leaned low, taking a moment to assess the two flustered men, cheeks flushed, hair a spiky mess, parked in a $90,000 car on the side of the highway at eight o'clock at night.

"Good evening, gentlemen," the officer said in a strict, no-nonsense tone. "License, insurance, and registration, please."

Sebastian smiled, adopting an air of poise and confidence enough to obscure the hyper-anxiety of his fidgety boyfriend trying his hardest to disappear into the leather beside him. Of course, the officer's brown eyes automatically followed the movement of Sebastian's hand as he reached beneath Kurt's seat for the pouch that held his car's registration, and she focused her attention on Kurt, knees knocking subtly from nervousness and the strain of being pinned by Sebastian's strong hands. Kurt wound his fingers together in his lap, staring down at them as if they were suddenly the most thought provoking things that ever existed on this terrestrial planet.

"Are you alright?" the officer ventured. Sebastian snuck a peek at Kurt while he removed the document holder, noticing how his eyes looked unfocused and distant.

Kurt looked terrified.

"Kurt?" Sebastian prompted gently, hoping the sound of his voice would give Kurt something familiar hold on to.

"I'm alright," Kurt replied, a weak smile on his face. He raised his eyes as an afterthought to address the officer, trying not to act too suspicious, though he knew deep in his heart that ship had already sailed.

"Would you like to tell me why you guys are parked here?" the officer asked Sebastian. "Are you having car trouble?"

Sebastian handed over his license, proof of insurance, and car registration. The officer took it, keeping her eyes locked on Kurt for as long as possible before she looked over the proffered paperwork.

"Nope," Sebastian answered coolly. "The car's fine. Just pulled over to talk for a minute. I guess that took longer than we expected."

The officer smirked, looking slightly unconvinced by Sebastian's explanation.

"You guys look like you might have been doing a little more than just talking," the officer speculated, handing Sebastian back his registration and insurance, but holding on to his license, tapping it idly against her hand.

Sebastian felt Kurt go rigid beside him, heard him suck in a breath and hold it.

Sebastian sighed. As a teenager, he could bullshit with the best of them. Driving cross country one summer he talked himself out of more tickets than he could count. But he didn't have the time to schmooze; neither did he have the energy. He just wanted to get back on the road with Kurt, no more interruptions or distractions.

"Look," Sebastian said, fixing the officer with the most sincere expression he could conjure, "believe me when I tell you that I know exactly what this must look like. But I'm going to be straight and tell you the absolute truth,"

At those words, Kurt physically began to shrink.

"That would be nice," the officer drawled, sounding skeptical, still flicking Sebastian's license with her fingers.

"This stunning man sitting next to me is my boyfriend, Kurt Hummel," he started, trying not to wince when he heard Kurt whimper in agony beside him, "and we're going to Ohio so I can meet his dad and he can meet my parents." Sebastian paused, giving Kurt a moment to recover before he launched into more detail of 'the absolute truth'.

"So, as you can imagine, we're both a bit stressed out and I thought…"

Kurt's head snapped up in horror as it struck him exactly what Sebastian was about to admit.

"…a blowjob would be just the thing to ease the tension."

"Oh God!" Kurt groaned, dropping his head in his hands and turning in his seat, trying to hide completely from view.

Other than that, the world around them went dead quiet. The officer stared hard at Sebastian. Sebastian tried his best to look unperturbed.

Kurt prayed for a deep, dark chasm to swallow him whole and spit out his bones in about fifty years.

The officer's face split slowly into an unexpected grin. She shook her head as she chuckled, handing Sebastian back his license.

"You know, I wouldn't have believed you if not for your boyfriend over there trying to crawl back into his own skin, so I'm letting you off with a warning."

"Thank you, officer," Sebastian said, pocketing his license and resting a comforting hand of Kurt's knee, though his boyfriend made no move to return from his hiding place to the land of the living.

"This isn't the safest stretch of road to stop on for any reason," the officer continued. "Next time, wait till you get to a hotel."

"We will, officer. Thank you, very much."

The officer nodded, straightening up and preparing the return to her vehicle.

"Uh, officer?" Sebastian called, catching her before she got too far.

"Yes?" she said, looking over Sebastian's face quizzically, curious if he had anything else illicit to confess.

"You wouldn't happen to know how far it _is_ to the closest hotel, do you?" Sebastian's lips curled into a sly grin. Trying to dissolve into his car seat, Kurt knew this final query was a taunt for his benefit, since the Porsche's navigation system could tell them where the closest hotel to their location was.

"About fifteen miles down the road," she replied with a mischievous grin. "Stay safe, guys. And by the way…that's a hot car."

"Thank you," Sebastian said, his flirty tone relaying his true meaning - 'I know'.

The officer nearly sauntered away this time around, switching off the spot light the minute she got to her car, her intrusion in their lives over even before she got in her car and drove away.

Sebastian waited until he heard her car pull away.

"You can come out now," he said with a slight chuckle to a mortified Kurt, tugging at Kurt's wrist, trying to pull his hand loose from his face.

"Did you have to tell her that?" Kurt moaned, keeping his hands firmly pressed in place. Sebastian felt sorry for Kurt; he truly did. In many ways, Kurt was still coming into his sexuality. Sebastian had long since been comfortable with flaunting his. But what he had with Kurt was sacred, more so than any other sexual relationship of his life. He felt sorry for using it the way he did. He knew he could very well have lied and said that he was falling asleep behind the wheel, and pulled over so as not to crash the car. The officer would probably have accepted that as a plausible explanation, but Sebastian wasn't 100% sure she would be fooled.

"I'm sorry, Kurt," Sebastian said finally. "I…I didn't mean to embarrass you like that."

From behind Kurt's hands, Sebastian heard a slight sniffle, a muted noise that struck straight at his heart and twisted.

"I shouldn't have used that as an excuse," Sebastian continued, trying to find some way to make this better; knowing there was nothing he could say to take back what he did, using an intimate moment to dodge a ticket, but for all Sebastian knew, the officer might assume Kurt was a prostitute. After all, even he had to admit that pulling off the highway for a blowjob was kind of sketchy.

Another small sniffle caught Sebastian's attention. It didn't quite sound like the first.

It didn't sound particularly upset.

Sebastian turned to Kurt, hands still pasted to his face, his shoulders shaking slightly to the rhythm of tiny muffled noises.

Sebastian grinned at his gorgeous boyfriend, chuckling like an idiot behind his hands.

"Kurt?" Sebastian purred, leaning over the center console to kiss over the backs of Kurt's hands. "Kurt? Are you laughing?"

"Maybe a little," Kurt admitted through his fit. "But only at you, my love."

Kurt dropped his hands from his face and Sebastian kissed him, capturing him against his body, and telling him in no uncertain terms that he loved him, and that everything would be alright as long as they were together.

Sebastian would always believe that.

"Do you really want to go to that hotel?" Kurt asked, a little apprehensive.

"You know I would," Sebastian growled, planting small pecks to Kurt's high cheekbones, "but I think you've waited long enough to see your dad." Sebastian placed one last kiss to Kurt's forehead. He lingered there, hoping this small touch would sustain him for the next few hours. Sebastian moved down Kurt's face to gaze into his boyfriend's eyes and the smile that touched them. "Let's get you home."

Kurt bit his lip when he smiled, looking young and excited and untouchable, even though Sebastian knew the truth. He knew that the last three years had aged him. He knew just how strong, and vulnerable, Kurt could be. Sebastian wanted to give him this gift…but he didn't mind teasing him a bit, too.

"It's not a tremendous blow to my fragile ego," Sebastian griped as he buckled Kurt into his seat and returned to his own. "My libido can wait."

"I think that maybe your ego is a bit too big to be shattered by one little rejection," Kurt laughed. Sebastian turned the key in the ignition and the Porsche came back to life. Kurt shifted in his seat, leaning over the center console and snaking a hand over Sebastian's thigh. "Besides," he said, toying with the zipper to Sebastian's jeans, pulling it slowly down, feeling the tab travel lower, tooth by tooth, "think of all the fun we can have along the way." Kurt wrapped long, lithe fingers around Sebastian's growing erection and started to stroke slowly.

Sebastian pushed up into Kurt's hand, moaning when his boyfriend tightened his grip.

"Then let's get started," Sebastian groaned, stepping on the gas pedal, almost drifting off the loose gravel and hard-packed dirt, and flying down the highway into the night.

* * *

><p>Music thumped low through the speakers of the radio; soft enough to be a soothing, unobtrusive soundtrack to their road trip, but upbeat enough to keep Sebastian awake. They continued down the highway, Porsche almost driving itself down the stretch of lonely road, still in silence, but comfortably so, with none of the tension or anxiety from earlier in the trip hanging around. Sebastian smiled at his own brilliance.<p>

He was right of course, back from that first weekend he spent with Kurt – a massive 'o' can work wonders.

Kurt sat low in the leather car seat, leaning his head against the spotless glass window, Sebastian's Harvard sweatshirt sandwiched between his forehead and the glass. With his finger he traced the constellations he could see.

"The sky is so clear out here," Kurt murmured in awe, finding the figure of Ursa Minor, resting a fingertip over Polaris, and then tracing his way along the Little Dipper.

"That's the good thing about no light pollution," Sebastian offered. "You can see all the stars and the satellites."

Kurt turned in his seat to watch Sebastian speak for the first time in hours; at least something other than telling Kurt how fantastic he felt around him, and later to ask him if he was hungry or if he needed to use the bathroom.

"My mom and I use to spend almost every summer night in a tent on the lawn," Sebastian said, though whether he was talking to Kurt or just calling back the memory, Kurt couldn't tell. But he didn't miss the catch in Sebastian's voice, and the more he spoke, the more Kurt began to get a clue about what might be wrong. "She knew so much about the constellations." Sebastian turned to look at Kurt with the weak shadow of a much brighter smile. "Her dad was a sailor."

Kurt nodded, waiting in the silence for Sebastian to continue, but he simply turned his attention back to the road.

Kurt knew Sebastian didn't want to talk about whatever was bothering him, but Kurt felt so far on the outside. He wanted to help, but he needed to know how. Kurt didn't know too much about Sebastian's relationship with his mother…or with most of his family, to be honest. Kurt knew in black and white, clear cut definitions that Sebastian's father turned out to be a homophobic asshole who disowned his eldest son and put the burden of the family company onto the shoulders of the youngest; Sebastian's mother was his rock, and quite possibly his best friend, but she was suffering from a form of early onset Alzheimer's, and her mind was slipping away; and then there was his little brother Richard, who Sebastian claimed to resent when he was younger, but who turned out to be a Godsend, fighting to get Sebastian's inheritance back, which is what made their current cross-country foray and their planned trip to France possible. Richard also had a wife and son, but Kurt didn't know much more about them then the fact that they existed.

Those were just generalizations, and Kurt wasn't entirely certain they were accurate. But Kurt and Sebastian had always made it a point to be the focus of their relationship. To be completely fair, Kurt didn't offer up too much more information about his own family than the fact that his father owned an auto body shop, and that his stepbrother Finn had passed away while Kurt was gone. Now things would change. In a few days, Kurt would walk hand in hand with Sebastian into the lion's den. He didn't want to be caught off-guard.

Kurt opened his mouth to ask a question, something innocuous to get the ball rolling like what was his sister-in-law's name, but before he could say a word his iPhone chirped.

"Ah," Sebastian said with a smug grin, "it must be ten o'clock. Just a few more hours and you'll be home, gorgeous."

Kurt pulled out his phone and checked the alert on the screen.

Just like clockwork, Kurt thought, and he knew Sebastian thought it, too.

_To: Kurt_

_From: Blaine_

_I hope you guys are on the road and safe. Tell your dad I said hi._

Sebastian glanced over as Kurt typed out a reply.

"Everything alright?" Sebastian asked.

"Looks like it," Kurt responded off-handedly while he typed. "He just says he hopes we're safe. You know it takes about three tries before you can get anything out of him."

After Kurt and Sebastian's trial by fire at the hands of a deranged Chandler set on destroying everyone in Kurt's past who had ever hurt him in order to have Kurt for his own, Kurt had decided to build a renewed friendship with Blaine as part of his rehabilitation process - a way to reconcile the past as he moved on with his future. Sebastian had explained to Kurt how Blaine had been tricked into believing that Kurt had moved on with his life after leaving Lima to live in New York; moved on from everything, including Blaine.

It didn't excuse Blaine's cheating, especially since that devastating betrayal pushed Kurt into the arms of a man who tortured and abused him, but as much as Sebastian wanted to, he couldn't find it in his heart to hate Blaine, especially when he discovered the truth about Blaine's current relationship, that he had stayed with the man he cheated on Kurt with, not out of any semblance of true love or devotion, but to punish himself for breaking the heart of the only man he ever truly loved.

During Kurt's convalescence, when he spent day in and day out lying in Sebastian's arms, sleeping during the day to stave off nightmares of Chandler torturing Sebastian, and spending his night's awake, but mostly in a numb stupor, Sebastian fielded Blaine's panicked texts until one day, while Kurt slept, Blaine called. Sebastian, awake and planning for the day when Kurt would come back to him and they could get started on their future, took the call, fully prepared to tell Blaine to shove off. Instead, they struck up a conversation and talked for over an hour until Kurt woke from his nap and Sebastian cut Blaine short.

From then on, Sebastian and Blaine had 'an understanding', which was nowhere near a true friendship really, but allowed Kurt the opportunity to make things right with Blaine without it causing a fissure in his current relationships with Sebastian.

Blaine helped Sebastian get in contact with Kurt's dad, and through a multitude of secret conversations to get the ball rolling, Sebastian unearthed a horrible truth; Blaine's boyfriend Eli was abusive, verbally and emotionally. Just as Kurt had been trapped in his little yellow house for three long years, hiding from his past, Blaine spent that time being tormented by his.

Kurt vowed to help Blaine, and when Kurt asked Sebastian if he would be okay with helping him find a way, Sebastian didn't even bat an eyelash before agreeing wholeheartedly. Like it or not, Sebastian had a few debts to repay to one Blaine Anderson on behalf of his boyfriend, and Sebastian didn't like being in debt to anyone.

Besides, there was a part of Sebastian that was morbidly curious to see what kind of man Blaine would leave Kurt for.

After their break-up, Blaine had made it a habit to text Kurt every Monday night at exactly at ten p.m., but now that Sebastian had given his blessing Blaine texted Kurt (and ostensibly Sebastian) _every_ night at ten o'clock.

Sebastian was in no way threatened by Blaine. He knew Blaine was still in love with Kurt. For all of his faults, Blaine had at least been man enough to admit it when Sebastian asked. Sebastian also knew that Kurt had a special place in his heart for his first love.

Besides, if Kurt actually did find someone he loved more than Sebastian, then he deserved a man who loved Kurt to the ends of the earth and back, who would put Kurt's happiness above his own, who would consider life incomplete without Kurt in it.

Blaine definitely was not that man.

Furthermore, to come close to deserving Kurt, he felt that this phantom bastard would need to have more money, a better ass, and a bigger dick than Sebastian did.

He was confident such a creature didn't actually exist.

The next time Sebastian chanced a peek at Kurt, he was frowning at his iPhone screen, fingers poised over the keys, a far off look in his prismatic eyes.

"What is it, gorgeous?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt sighed; typing what Sebastian could ascertain was a quick good-bye before pocketing the phone and turning his body in the seat to look at Sebastian.

"I don't understand why he doesn't just leave," Kurt muttered, not quite meeting Sebastian's eyes.

"He's stuck," Sebastian reasoned. "Sometimes it's hard to just pick up and leave, knowing there's no one out there to help you. It's scary being on your own."

"You did it," Kurt said quietly.

Sebastian nodded, turning his head to beam at his boyfriend with unguarded pride.

"So did you."

Kurt ducked his head, trying to curb his blushing to three a day.

* * *

><p>It was closing in on midnight when the sleek black car wound its way through the streets of suburban Lima. Kurt hemmed and hawed over renting a room for the night, arguing that it was too late, that his dad might be in bed, and he didn't have a key to the house if he was – not anymore.<p>

"Kurt," Sebastian said, gently interrupting his ramblings, "I don't know your dad, but from talking to him just that little bit I think I can safely say that your old man is awake right now waiting for you." Sebastian rolled to a stop at a posted 'STOP' sign, took Kurt's hand in his, brought it to his lips and kissed it, brushing across his knuckles with just the slightest touch. "Don't make the poor man wait any longer to see his son."

Kurt felt a sudden wave of guilt hit him. Of course his dad would be awake waiting for him. He must be worried sick. He barely spoke a word to him in three years, didn't even text, fearing for his safety, for his very life. But aside from that, their decision to see Kurt's father first meant putting a reunion between Sebastian and his mom on hold, and Kurt recognized that Sebastian's mom didn't have a lot of time left before she forgot about Sebastian and most of the things in her life entirely.

"You're right," Kurt agreed. "You're absolutely right. I need to go see him. I'm just…I guess I'm just nervous. I'm not ready to tell him everything about…you know…"

Sebastian continued to kiss Kurt's hand, grateful that no one else was up at this hour, sitting behind them at the stop, waiting for Sebastian to move along.

"You don't have to tell him if you're not ready," Sebastian said. "He's your dad. He'll understand."

Kurt nodded again, smiling as Sebastian placed a line of kisses down the back of his hand, traveling across the back of his wrist and heading for his arm.

"Sebastian," Kurt chided, "isn't this how we got pulled over in the first place?"

"Eh, you can't fault a man for trying," Sebastian joked. "Just, please tell me your room is really a converted World War II era bunker or lead-lined panic room that's completely sound proof? Otherwise your father's approval of me might end up being short lived, if not non-existent."

Kurt fixed Sebastian with a stern, commanding gaze.

"Listen to me, Sebastian Smythe," Kurt said evenly, "we are _not_, I repeat, _not_ having sex in my father's house."

Sebastian's slow grin spread across his lips from behind the shield of Kurt's hand, and for a moment he thought Kurt might actually be serious. But then Sebastian's smirk spread, and Kurt rolled his eyes when he couldn't stop the grin for growing on his own face.

"At least…not unless you're really quiet," Kurt relented, leaning in to kiss the hand that held his own.

"I promise nothing, gorgeous," Sebastian said, giving Kurt's hand one final peck before retreating back to his side of the vehicle, still keeping Kurt's fingers tangled with his own while he put the car into gear and drove slowly down the street.

"Sebastian!" Kurt sputtered, sounding scandalized, but delightfully hot and bothered by the fact that he was now fondling the gear shift with his hand locked with Sebastian's.

"What?" Sebastian asked innocently. "You're fucking hot. How do you expect me to keep quiet with you pounding into me?"

"Find a way," Kurt said, putting an end to the banter for now in an effort to control the butterflies that had broken loose, fluttering in a tizzy the moment his father's house came into view, a single light still glowing in the living room window, and the shadow of a portly man wearing a distinctive baseball cap watching from behind a sheer curtain as the Porsche pulled into the driveway.

The shadowy figure continued to stare as Sebastian killed the ignition, the car humming softly before becoming completely quiet.

Everything was still. Sebastian waited while Kurt stared at the house that he once called home. The shadow inside was soon joined by another figure, this one smaller in stature. A hand parted the sheer curtain and a kindly-looking woman's face pressed near to the glass to get a better look. She smiled when she set eyes on Kurt, miming something at them through the window while tugging on her husband's shirt, as if in that moment the world wasn't moving fast enough to suit her.

"I think that's your cue, gorgeous," Sebastian said, nudging Kurt's shoulder with his hand. "It's time you made an appearance."

Kurt could barely find the courage to move. He fumbled for the handle and opened the car door, stepping out into the cool evening air. Only then, seeing his son darkening his driveway for the first time in three years, did Burt Hummel move, bounding through the door in fewer steps than Sebastian imagined it would actually take to get from the living room to the front door. There he stopped again, peering at his son in the glow of the porch light, as if over the years he had lived this moment a thousand times, standing and staring at the mirage of a son that turned out to be just the shadow of a tree or a figment of his own hope, praying that if he wished for his son to come home hard enough, that somehow Kurt would manage to appear.

The thought brought tears to Kurt's eyes.

"Kurt?" the older man whispered, bargaining silently with every chip he still had in his possession that this time it was true.

Kurt's lips stuttered around the word a few times before any sound actually came out.

"Dad?" Kurt asked back, his chest tightening around a heart that swelled with the fear that maybe this wasn't real, because once or twice in the last few years he had woken up in his little yellow prison, frightened and disoriented, running from the specter of the men who abused and used him, and stumbled out onto his own walkway, imagining that his father was standing there waiting to take him home.

At the same time both men decided to stop waiting, and Burt stumbled toward his son just as Kurt raced forward into his father's arms.

"Dad!" Kurt cried. His voice was weak, and it shook uncontrollably when he spoke, but he couldn't stop, because stopping might make it all go away, and Kurt wanted so desperately to be back home. He wasn't a grown man. In many ways, he was still a naïve teenager, who had lost his sense of direction and his innocence all too quickly.

"Oh, God, Kurt!" Burt murmured as he held his son, knuckles white as his fingers curled into the red Harvard sweatshirt Kurt wore. "I thought…I thought I'd never see you again, kiddo. Do you know how worried we all were?"

Burt's voice verged on the edge of anger, but Kurt waited patiently, letting it wash away before he spoke, and even then all he could think to say was, "I'm sorry."

Burt wasn't angry. His son was back, in many ways from the dead, and Burt would never be angry at his son again.

Watery green eyes peeked up from over Kurt's shoulder at the sound of a car door shutting when Sebastian stepped out from the driver's seat of the Porsche.

"You," Burt said, addressing this strange young man that he had a suspicion he already sort of knew. "You did this? You brought him home?"

"Yes, sir," Sebastian said without a single trace of cockiness or conceit. "We spoke on the phone. My name's…"

"I remember who you are," Burt cut in.

Sebastian was startled, confused by the protective edge in the man's voice, preparing to defend himself though he wasn't quite sure what from. Sebastian turned to look at Kurt, questioning eyes asking for an explanation, but then he felt himself pulled forward into the embrace, while the bubbly woman, watching quietly from the porch, joined the hug from behind.

There the four stayed, holding each other close – parents, lost children and new friends - the first step to mending a family.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N:** _I'm sorry this took so long to write. These first few chapters with Kurt going back home have been a little heartbreaking. Warning for mention of Finn._

Burt held Kurt so tight that Kurt almost couldn't breathe, but he wasn't about to complain. Seeing his father for the first time in years, smelling the familiar scent of _Old Spice_ on his skin, being wrapped up in one of his bear-hugs again was worth all the discomfort Kurt would ever have to endure. They would have stayed outside, huddled together in each other's arms all through the dark morning until daybreak if not for the practical mind of Carole Hudson-Hummel.

"You know boys, I think we'd better move this cuddle party indoors before the neighbors think we're out here holding a séance or something," she said with a final squeeze around all three men. She gently pried Kurt and Sebastian apart, which Sebastian didn't particularly appreciate, to weave an arm through Kurt's and lead him toward the house, but then she turned to Sebastian with a genuine smile, wrapped her free arm around his waist, and refused to let go.

"Well hello, handsome," she said with a wink and a definite teasing, albeit exhausted, twinkle in her motherly eyes. Sebastian knew from that moment that he would more than likely grow to love her. They walked in their train formation, unwilling to let go of one another lest someone got lost, up the patio steps and into the house.

The house was warm, incredibly warm especially when compared with the cold chill of outside. Sebastian eyed this first room which, though he'd never stepped foot in it before in his life, felt unnervingly familiar. Burt and Carole were definitely empty nesters, but the house they lived in was still very much a family home. What caught Sebastian's attention was the arrangement of the furniture, the placement of the family photographs on the walls, the overall color scheme…though the décor differed greatly, the general set-up reminded Sebastian of Kurt's yellow prison, down to the tiniest details, like the table by the door for the mail and the rack on the wall for the keys. That's what Kurt was trying to recreate in his house for all those years. He was trying to find a way back home.

The entourage talked animatedly around him, and having stopped for a moment to notice the interior design, Sebastian was already lost in the conversation. So, when everyone stopped talking and looked at him expectantly, Kurt nodding encouragingly, the only response he had was a sly half-smile, followed by, "I'm sorry…what?"

Kurt's smile slid a bit and Burt looked slightly annoyed, frankly more exhausted than really put out, but Carole shook her head and laughed.

"Come on, guys. I think we're overwhelming the poor man. He's obviously never been exposed to our unique brand of crazy before. Let's not scare him off all at once."

Kurt chuckled and shook his head, regaining the bit of the smile that he had lost. Sebastian was glad. He didn't want to disappoint Kurt, especially not in front of his family, and missing out on the conversation by getting lost in his own thoughts probably wasn't key to making a good first impression.

"She asked you how we met," Kurt said, taking Sebastian's arm and guiding him into the kitchen. Burt was seated at the table already, sprinkling Splenda into a mug of black coffee. There were three more mugs set up; Carole gestured to Sebastian with the coffee pot and a questioning expression on her face.

"It's decaf," she said.

"Oh, yes. Please," Sebastian answered. "Well, I was actually Kurt's FedEx delivery man."

"Oh," Carole said, stopping mid-pour and putting a hand over her heart. "That's so romantic, like right out of a Harlequin romance novel."

"A _cheesy_ Harlequin romance novel," Kurt amended, slipping into the chair that Sebastian held out for him.

"Yeah, that or a porno," Sebastian murmured.

Carole choked on a laugh.

Burt nearly choked on his coffee.

Kurt peeked over his cup at his father's red face and smiled weakly, turning his attention back to his mug when it was clear that his father was not going to find the humor in Sebastian's comment.

"So, was it love at first sight?" Carole asked, still swooning over what she saw as a hopelessly romantic set of circumstances.

"Not exactly," Kurt piped up, looking at his boyfriend and sharing a knowing grin. "I mean, I'm willing to admit that I thought he was handsome when I first saw him."

Sebastian tossed an arm around Kurt's shoulders as he recalled that first moment he laid eyes on Kurt.

"Yeah, and I'll admit that you were pretty hot yourself," he said, giving Kurt's shoulders a squeeze, "but to be fair, you were also kind of a…"

"I think I'm going to check the fridge for some mocha creamer," Kurt said, effectively cutting Sebastian off before he said anything else his dad might deem questionable. He popped up out of his seat and passed a snickering Carole on his way to the refrigerator.

"So, do you still work for FedEx?" Burt asked cautiously, finally deciding to join in the conversation that was spiraling out of control around him. "I mean, that's a pretty expensive car out there for someone who's just delivering packages all day long."

"My employment with FedEx was sort of a temporary thing," Sebastian explained, sipping his bitter coffee.

"What? It was something you were doing while you were waiting to start your Fortune 500 company?" Burt asked with more venom than Kurt was used to.

"Dad…" Kurt hissed from behind the refrigerator door.

"Actually," Sebastian said after another distasteful sip, "it was the only work I could find after my father cut me off for being gay."

The room went quiet.

Carole gasped and Kurt held his breath, waiting for his father's reaction. Burt glanced up from his mug at the young man sitting across from him. Sebastian's eyes met his, and the two men regarded each other as a father and a son.

"I…I'm sorry about that," Burt said, putting his mug down on the table. "No father should do that to their son."

Sebastian nodded, smiling politely.

"Thank you," Sebastian said, but his voice sounded tight to Kurt, who went back to rifling through the contents of his father's fridge.

"Carole!" Kurt scolded as he stood with a package of processed pork product in his hand. "Bacon? Really?"

"Oh, God." Carole rolled her eyes in aggravation, an effect that was ruined by the huge grin growing on her face. "Here we go."

"You know, Kurt…" Burt turned in his chair to address his sanctimonious son, "we _are_ adults. We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much."

"Adults you may be," Kurt said, shaking the offending bacon in the air, "and yet here you are with BACON in your refrigerator!"

"Jesus Christ, Kurt. It's like you never left."

Burt laughed, his first genuine laugh since they'd arrived, and Sebastian could see that though Kurt got his luminous blue eyes from his mother, his smile and his laugh belonged to his dad.

Sebastian heard the clinking of glass and the sliding of bottles back and forth as Kurt shuffled things around.

"Steak, beer, potato salad…" Kurt muttered angrily. "Hot dogs, dad!? Hot dogs!?"

"You know, there's a lovely Hampton Inn in Lima," Burt commented to Sebastian as he took the last sip of his now cold coffee. "It's not that far from here if you want to take your crazy boyfriend and stay there."

"Ha ha," an unamused Kurt deadpanned. Sebastian held his tongue and shook his head, trying to look as sympathetic as possible without explicitly getting involved in an argument where taking sides with Kurt's dad might mean not getting laid for the remainder of their time in Ohio. "You know," Kurt continued, "maybe I should stay here for a while and help you get back on track."

The comment sounded completely thoughtless, but not in the cruel sense. More like it had been sitting for so long on the forefront of Kurt's brain that it didn't take much persuasion for it to become a conclusion. Kurt uttering those words changed the atmosphere in the kitchen completely. The air bristled with tension. Sebastian could see Burt and Carole's eyes flick toward him in unison, but he kept his eyes glued firmly on his coffee mug, as if the image of cartoon cats snuggling sleepily over a shared mug was suddenly so intriguing that there was no way Sebastian could possibly take his eyes off it. Years of dealing with his father's tactless indifference helped him put up a shield of nonchalance and impassivity, but it didn't escape his notice how Kurt said _'I should stay'_ and not _'we'_.

Did Kurt honestly think that Sebastian wouldn't stay if that's what he wanted to do…or did Kurt not want Sebastian to stay if he did? Traveling around the world together was one thing, but home…home is sacred. So is family; and Kurt spent so much time protecting his family, maybe he didn't know how to stop.

"Well, this is your home, Kurt," Burt said, breaking the silence that Kurt didn't seem to realize had built up around his comment, "and you boys are welcome to stay as long as you want."

Sebastian smiled with more than just practiced politeness this time when his eyes met Burt's again.

Kurt finally climbed out of the refrigerator and dropped back down in his seat, putting a hand over Sebastian's and sighing contentedly, suddenly distracted by the uncomfortable faces that surrounded the kitchen table.

"Well, guys, it's late," Carole interjected, not wanting the tension to build up since no one appeared to have the strength or energy to deal with it, "and as much as we would both love to stay awake shooting the poop with you, I think we should wait on that till the morning." She glanced up at the wall clock and pulled a face. "Later in the morning, that is." She put a hand on Burt's shoulder, who took that as his cue to stand. "Kurt, you know where everything is. Help yourselves to anything in the house. We casa is su casa."

Burt took one final look at his son sitting in front of him, alive and seemingly well the way he had imagined him all these years. He stooped over and hugged him tight, not quite willing to stop worrying that by the morning his son would be gone again; but Burt Hummel decided would have faith.

"Good night, kiddo," the tired man muttered, patting him on the shoulder. "See you guys in the morning."

It sounded remotely like a question, and it killed Kurt that his father would have to ask it. Kurt did this; he put this insecurity in him. He knew now, as a grown man who had seen things that other people shouldn't have to see, that he could have gone to his father when things had turned so horribly wrong. When he had needed help, he should have swallowed his pride and returned home, started over there from a place of safety instead of being so dead and determined to go it alone.

"See you in the morning, dad," Kurt reassured him.

Burt regarded Sebastian warily, offering him a half-hug, short but sincere, before making his way from the kitchen through the living room to the stairs that led to the upper level of the house.

Carole watched Burt leave, waiting until he started up the staircase, then turned back to Kurt and Sebastian, who stood from the table and put their mugs in the sink.

"Uh, Kurt, honey. There's something I need to tell you."

Sebastian watched his boyfriend's face go completely white, the hand that slipped into his for support trembling.

"Is it dad?" Kurt started, and Sebastian saw the way the thought of his father's failing health affected him. "It's his heart, isn't it? Was he trying to spare my feelings by saying everything's…"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down, tiger," Carole said, leaning forward and giving Kurt a reassuring hug. "It's not that. It's not about that at all. It's… your room."

"Ugh!" Kurt chuckled, rolling his eyes, but visibly relaxing with relief. "What did he turn it into? A man cave or something? Did he move all his tools up there?"

The look in Carole's eyes turned serious, significant with her need for Kurt to understand.

"No, Kurt," she said, taking his arms and holding his attention with her eyes. "No, he hasn't touched it at all. Not since you left. It's exactly how you left it the last time we saw you."

Kurt's face fell. He swallowed so hard that Sebastian could feel it through the hand that tightened around his.

"I…I understand," Kurt said.

Carole squeezed Kurt's shoulder and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

"It's good to see you again, baby," Carole whispered, and then reached up on her toes to peck Sebastian on the cheek as well.

"And it was so _so_ nice to meet you," she said, hoping to impart all the things she wished had been said around the kitchen table, about how grateful they were that Sebastian had helped bring Kurt home safe to them, how that made him part of the family for now until the end of time.

There was time for that tomorrow, she reasoned, so she let the two men be for the night, following her husband upstairs.

Kurt and Sebastian stood alone in the kitchen, hand in hand, listening to the noises of the two people upstairs settling in for the night.

"Uh…is it strange that I feel like I've taken a weird trip into the past?" Kurt asked.

"Nope," Sebastian said firmly, remembering that he would find himself in a similar situation in a few days. "I think I took that trip with you and I've never even been here before."

They continued to stand until the entire house echoed silence around them. There was no pillow talk from the couple upstairs. Carole and Burt were content with their son safely at home, and they fell straight to a soundless sleep.

"So, should we head upstairs, too?" Sebastian asked, his aching feet becoming numb from standing in one spot for too long.

"Yeah," Kurt said. "Yeah, I think maybe we should."

He took a long breath in and let it out, but didn't move.

"I could…get our things from the car if you wanted to start upstairs?" Sebastian offered, thinking that maybe Kurt needed a moment alone in his own house before Sebastian invaded his carefully ordered world.

"Uh, I think I'll wait for you in the living room," Kurt said, taking a step and pulling Sebastian along. "I haven't been up those stairs in years, and that's a trip I don't want to take alone." Kurt cast a glance up the staircase, eyes wide and a touch fearful.

Sebastian nodded. He bent to kiss Kurt gently on the cheek, but Kurt turned his head at the last moment and caught Sebastian's mouth, breathing him deep as he moved their lips together. It was short and sweet, but Sebastian could feel the despair in it, the sadness.

"Please, be quick," Kurt whispered when he found the strength to pull away.

"I will," Sebastian said. He raced out quickly to the Cayman in the driveway and pulled out what they had already tagged their 'immediate need' bags. Each one held pajamas, toiletries, and a change of clothes for the next day. The rest of their things could be dealt with later. Sebastian pulled a cover over the car and headed back in the house with their luggage.

Sebastian locked the front door, amazed after spending so much time at Kurt's house to be in a place with only one deadbolt on the door and no security system. Kurt stood at the foot of the staircase staring up into the dim light of the hallway above. The moment was so similar to dozens Sebastian had experienced before, it was uncanny. Sebastian felt like he should grab Kurt, toss the man over his shoulder, and run up the stairs with him. He would have if he thought it had a chance of making Kurt laugh. On the contrary, it seemed like a solemn occasion, though Sebastian couldn't put his finger on why.

Kurt reached for his bag, but Sebastian yanked it out of Kurt's reach. Kurt frowned and reached for the bag again, but Sebastian put the bag on the floor, pinched Kurt hard on the ass, and then picked it up again.

"Fine," Kurt yelped, rubbing his sore cheek. He turned up his nose and started up the stairs with a smile fighting at the corners of his mouth. That would have to be enough for Sebastian for now.

They reached the top of the stairs and the constant feeling of déjà vu continued. Five closed doors greeted them: two on each side and one at the end of the hallway. Before Kurt could say a word, Sebastian spoke, pointing back and forth in succession starting with the first door on their right, "Let me guess – bathroom, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, and the one at the end leads to the attic."

Kurt ducked his head, blushing furiously, but Sebastian could see the embarrassment in his expression. It stung Sebastian to his core.

"I'll admit it," Kurt said meekly. "When I bought my house, I…I was looking for a place that reminded me of home…"

Sebastian dropped the bags and pulled Kurt into his arms. He rocked Kurt backward until his back rested against the wall, folding Kurt completely in his embrace.

"You don't need to explain a thing to me," Sebastian said, peering into his boyfriend's eyes. "I'm an ass. It was supposed to be a joke, gorgeous. We all need to find our own way to get through the tough spots, and you did better…much better than most people." Sebastian kissed Kurt softly, enjoying how effortless this kiss was, skin brushing over skin as they touched. "You did so much better than me."

Kurt smiled, the embarrassment bleeding away but the alluring blush remaining on the apples of his cheeks. He dug his fingers into Sebastian's shirt and tugged him down the hall, barely giving him the chance to grab the bags.

"You were right about the bathroom; and the first door on the left is my dad and Carole's bedroom," Kurt confirmed quietly. They reached the end of the hall and Kurt stopped, his hand hovering over the door to his left where a plain wood placard hung by a fraying piece of twine looped over a red thumbtack, the block of lacquered wood burnished with the simple outline of a drum kit and a four-letter name: Finn. Kurt always thought it was kind of tacky. Why would someone buy something from an amusement park and then hang it on their door? It seemed so incredibly gauche, but Kurt had to admit that every time he looked at it, it took him right back to Senior Ditch Day at Six Flags.

"This is…was…my brother's room," Kurt said, his voice soft and reverent. Kurt ran his hand down the lines of the door, hovering above but not touching the wood. A unique energy surrounded that door. Sebastian felt it. He imagined that dozens of hands had touched it, had entered into that room, friends and relatives paying their respects, taking memories with them when they left; but something strong remained, like a spell. It would the touch of Kurt's fingertips to break it. Sebastian finally understood the feeling. It felt like waiting. Whatever it was that lingered by that doorway was waiting for Kurt to open the door and walk through.

Kurt pulled his hand away. He wasn't ready.

Kurt backed away from the door, letting his eyes read over the wooden sign one last time before turning his attention to the last unidentified room.

"And this," he said, with a similar reverence, "is my room."

Kurt reached for the door knob. He took a breath in through his nose and held it. It seemed as difficult for Kurt to open this door as it would have been to open his brother's door. Kurt shook his head, probably debating with himself, Sebastian thought, and turned the knob, swinging the door in and flicking on the light.

The room glowed, the white walls reflecting the illumination from several low-wattage bulbs scattered around – one in a stand-up lamp by the door, two in sconces over the bed, a set of lamps standing on a far dresser. Sebastian stepped in and noticed that the walls weren't exactly pure white, but more of a light cream. That color seemed to suit Kurt more in his opinion – not brash or glaring, but understated and comforting. Sebastian locked the bedroom door behind him, letting the aura of the room engulf him completely.

Most of the walls were actually recessed bookcases; books, magazines and pictures lined each and every shelf along with eclectic figurines and bookends. Bizarrely, everything was covered in different colored Post-Its, as if Kurt disappeared in the middle of planning a huge-garage sale. A glass vanity sat in the corner of the room by a window, and Sebastian couldn't help picturing a younger Kurt, a more carefree Kurt; maybe even a stuck-up, slightly bitchier Kurt, sitting on the small square stool, looking at himself in the mirror, applying moisturizer or…did Kurt wear _make-up_ in high school?

Meanwhile, about two hours away, a slightly older Sebastian was most likely creeping back into his own room after spending the night with a random lay. Sebastian was in no way proud of the distinction; it only served to prove the vast difference between the two of them, how they grew up, how they lived their lives, and yet here they were together…in love.

The bed was the flagship of the room. Sebastian didn't want to stare and salivate, but he couldn't help himself. Kurt had a cozy queen-sized bed, and it was red. The head board, the pillows, the comforter – all blood red. The bed itself looked rumpled, sheets and comforter pulled down, pillows tossed asunder, as if Kurt had gotten up out of it this morning and not over three years ago.

Sebastian saw Kurt staring at the bed, too, and felt his heart pounding in reaction to his eyes growing dark and wide, his lower lip trembling.

"Th-those sheets…" Kurt stuttered, eyes sweeping over them, his face unexpectedly blank.

"What's wrong with the sheets?" Sebastian asked, circling his arms around Kurt's waist from behind, adding a hint of suggestion to his voice in an attempt to lighten the mood. "They look _extremely_ comfortable."

Kurt shook his head, holding on with an iron grip to Sebastian's arm.

"The last time I…me and Blaine…"

That was all that needed to be said. Sebastian rounded in front of Kurt, blocking his view of the sheets and the bed.

"Hey," he said, drawing Kurt's attention away and up to his eyes. "Why don't you go get some new sheets, and I'll strip these off, huh? I don't know about you, but I'm about to die on my feet."

That wasn't exactly true. Sebastian _was_ tired, but he had no idea how he was going to get any sleep in this house. His mind whirled with thoughts and pictures and snippets of things that had been said that evening. He needed to find a way of making some of this new information fit into the plan he had set for the rest of his and Kurt's time together.

Kurt hurried out the bedroom door and Sebastian peeled the Egyptian cotton sheets off the bed, imaging beautiful teenaged cheerleader Kurt, naked lithe body twined around his boyfriend Blaine, the two of them smiling and laughing, touching and kissing, so tremendously in love.

Sebastian hoped that he wouldn't have to compete with a ghost while they stayed there.

Back in Kurt's old house, the ghosts of the past were kept confined to a single room.

Here in the home Kurt lived in throughout high school, the spirits roamed around freely.

Sebastian sighed. Why didn't he grab Kurt and run to the Hampton the minute Burt mentioned it?

Sebastian had the mattress completely bare and the hefty pile of linens shoved in a corner for the time-being when Kurt returned with an identical set of white sheets. They made the bed together in silence, Kurt's mind obviously wandering as he covered his end of the bed in white cotton. Sebastian wanted to know everything that was going on in his mind because for some reason Sebastian began to feel their dreams coming to a standstill. He didn't want to jump to conclusions; they'd only been in Lima for less than a few hours. Sebastian knew that Kurt needed time to adjust.

"Did you want to take a shower or something?" Kurt started, pointing in the direction of the hallway.

"Nah," Sebastian said around a well-timed yawn. "Actually, I'm really looking forward to holding you and getting some sleep, if you don't mind."

A small smile slipped onto Kurt's lips.

"Why would I mind that?" Kurt said, opening his suitcase and getting out his pajamas.

"I don't know," Sebastian shrugged, opening up his bag and doing the same. "You seem a million miles away."

"I don't mean to be." Kurt slipped his clothes off and set them neatly aside, and as he had so many times before Sebastian admired him, admired his body, admired his new bravery and confidence while they were alone together. There he stood, completely naked, perfect body, flawless skin, and that back, that horrible map of all the abuse he had suffered, no longer something he needed to hide…from Sebastian at least. Kurt put on his pajamas and noticed Sebastian's stare, grinning as a new patch of red started to stain his cheeks. For Sebastian, Kurt dressed slowly, sliding his shirt over his torso first and then bending over low to pull up his pants, making sure to conveniently disregard wearing any underwear. Sebastian moaned, nearly lunging forward to grab at Kurt before he grabbed his toothbrush and scuttled away, giggling as he walked down the hall. Sebastian threw on his own shirt and pajama pants and raced to catch up to Kurt in the hallway bathroom.

The bathroom was bigger than Kurt's; probably meant to accommodate two teenaged boys at once, if necessary, though Kurt always struck Sebastian as the type of boy who would have gotten up early and spent over an hour in the bathroom, door locked stubbornly regardless of who slammed their fists against it needing to use the toilet. Where Kurt's bathroom had been stark white, clean, and sterile to a fault, this bathroom was whimsically decorated in an 'Under-the-Sea' theme - pale blue, deep blue, and sand colored tile; hand soaps in the shapes of sand dollars and starfish; and scented candles sitting in glass bowls filled halfway with sand and tiny seashells.

"So…did you help decorate the bathroom?" Sebastian asked as tactfully as he could around a mouth full of toothpaste. Kurt swept his eyes around the space to avoid watching his boyfriend spit into the sink.

"No," Kurt said, rinsing off his brush and sticking it in an empty cup on the counter. "This is new. When I lived here, the walls were a pale gold and the accents around the room were red."

"Like the red in your bedroom?"

Sebastian rinsed off his brush and stood it beside Kurt's, turning the bristles away from Kurt's since Kurt didn't like them touching. Sebastian remembered the first discussion they had about it, how Sebastian didn't understand how Kurt could suck his dick and swallow, but he wouldn't let their toothbrush bristles touch.

"It's just gross," Kurt had said without any further explanation, and left it at that.

"Yeah," Kurt said. "I asked Finn if he wanted to help, since we had to share the bathroom, but he said he didn't care as long as I bought one of those toilet paper racks that held, like, nine rolls of toilet paper." Kurt chuckled, staring at the twin brushes standing side by side in their plastic cup.

"Did you?" Sebastian asked, massaging Kurt's shoulders.

Kurt shook his head.

"No," Kurt answered sadly. "No, I didn't take him seriously, and he never mentioned it again after, so I thought..." He ran his fingertips along the edge of the countertop. "That happened a lot, actually. Me not taking him seriously…"

Sebastian caught Kurt in his arms.

"Don't do this to yourself," Sebastian said, watching Kurt close in on himself a bit. "Not right now. Not after everything you've been through. Let's go to bed and get through tonight. Agreed?"

Kurt nodded and took Sebastian's hand, letting Sebastian lead him back to bed though he had no idea how he was going to get any sleep, not with the heavy cloak of nostalgia and sorrow that seemed to drape around him with every new memory he uncovered.

They locked themselves back in Kurt's bedroom and switched off the lights, snuggling together beneath the thick comforter that smelled so much like memories of the past that Kurt wanted to scream. Kurt laid his head on Sebastian's chest so he could replace those smells with the one that had become to feel like home to him. He relaxed into Sebastian's heat, so tempted to shed his clothes and lie with his boyfriend skin to skin and _feel_ him; but right now there was something else on Kurt's mind, and he needed to get it out into the open without anything to distract him before it festered unnecessarily.

"You know I meant you too, right?" Kurt said into the silence.

"What, gorgeous?" Sebastian asked, running his fingers through Kurt's soft, chestnut hair.

"When I said that maybe I should stick around for a bit to help my dad get back on track. I meant _us_." Kurt looked up at Sebastian; wide, guileless eyes shining up at him in the dark. "I wouldn't stay here without you."

Sebastian smiled, kissing Kurt on the top of the head.

"Actually, gorgeous, I didn't know," Sebastian said, much more at ease now that Kurt's confession chased some of the ghosts away. "Thanks for telling me."

Kurt shifted up onto his hands and knees, and in the moonlight streaming in beneath the shades on the windows, Sebastian could see the distraught look of Kurt's face.

"I am so sorry!" he said. "I didn't think…"

"Shh," Sebastian hushed him, pulling him close against him. "It's okay. He's your dad. You're worried about him. And I know a little something about sick parents, remember?"

Kurt nodded against Sebastian's chest.

"So, we'll leave it at that for now, and cross that bridge when we come to it."

Sebastian breathed in deep. Everything was beginning to feel right again. At least he knew that no matter what Kurt wanted to be with him. That part hadn't changed.

"Sebastian?"

Kurt's voice sounded small; painfully small.

"Yes, gorgeous?"

"Would…would you make love to me? I mean, if it's not too weird for you or anything."

Sebastian grinned into the dark.

"I thought you said 'under no circumstances'?" Sebastian teased, parroting Kurt's words from earlier.

"Ah, but I amended it to 'you have to be quiet'," Kurt teased back.

"And I said I couldn't promise anything," Sebastian retorted.

Kurt groaned.

"Do you always have to have the last word?"

"No," Sebastian answered quickly, and Kurt jabbed his side, making Sebastian jump. Sebastian caught Kurt's wrists and rolled him over on his back with his arms pinned behind him. It was a sign of Kurt's ultimate trust in Sebastian that he didn't even think to struggle.

"Sweetheart, I think you're forgetting that I told you I would make love to you whenever and wherever you want," Sebastian reminded Kurt, sliding his lips over Kurt's skin, smiling when he felt his boyfriend squirm beneath him. "But are you sure it's not going to be weird for you? Or is having sex in your dad's house some kind of freaky kink, because I can definitely get behind that."

Kurt laughed, but the sound seemed hollow. He pushed up at Sebastian's legs with his own and Sebastian flipped them back around, settling Kurt to straddle over his hips.

"You always said this is how we communicate," Kurt said. Sebastian nodded, listening silently. "And, I need you. I need some of your strength if I'm ever going to get through tomorrow, so please…"

Sebastian sat up and kissed him, wrapping protective arms around him, enveloping him in his warmth, his love, whatever he had to give.

"Of course," Sebastian sighed, never breaking their kiss. He reached for the hem of Kurt's shirt, his fingertips brushing lightly over the soft skin of his stomach.

"First, I'm going to take this off," Sebastian told him, bunching up the fabric in his hands, dragging it up Kurt's body, "so I can kiss your chest." Kurt watched Sebastian bring the white cotton shirt over his head, raising his arms so Sebastian could slip the shirt off his arms and toss it away. Sebastian looked down Kurt's body with hungry, appreciative eyes, tracing long lines and patterns up Kurt's back with his fingertips while he kissed Kurt's neck, travelling down to the planes of his chest, circling a nipple with his tongue and then latching over it, sucking gently. Kurt tried not to moan; he didn't want to risk his dad or Carole hearing them, but the whine in the back of his throat he couldn't contain.

"We need to get these off, gorgeous," Sebastian said, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of Kurt's pants, "so I can take care of you properly."

Kurt swallowed hard, lifting up, letting Sebastian undress him; watching his green eyes shining in the moonlight as they slid over his body. Sebastian shifted down the bed till his head rested on the pillows. He grabbed Kurt's hips, pulling him over his chest.

"Next, I'm going to suck you off slowly…I'm going to take my time with you because I really don't want you to cum too quickly…"

Kurt gasped when Sebastian slid his mouth over him, biting his lip against the feeling of Sebastian's velvet tongue slipping around him, dragging lazily, unhurriedly up and down the length of his shaft. Kurt remembered lonely nights in high school, dreaming of a boy sneaking into his room and having sex with him; exploring and experimenting with things that he considered taboo. Now here he was, a grown adult in the same bedroom, with a wonderful man who walked into his house through the front door, and all of those taboo things were simply the way in which they connected as lovers and friends.

Kurt whimpered, moving his hips back and forth, pulling against the suction of Sebastian's mouth, enjoying the slide of his thighs against Sebastian's smooth chest where his legs pushed Sebastian's shirt up to his collarbone, and all the amazing sensations of heat coiling through him – aching and familiar, and so much a part of him now that if there were no Sebastian…if Sebastian ever left, Kurt was more than certain that he would never feel heat again.

"This…this is…incredible, Sebastian," Kurt sighed, "but I wanted to make love to you, baby."

Sebastian smiled around Kurt's cock. He loved listening to Kurt talk, loved listening to Kurt ask for pleasure. How could he deny a gorgeous man who wanted his cock?

Sebastian pulled away from Kurt's still moving hips.

"As you wish, but you're going to need to help me undress."

Kurt crawled down Sebastian's body and worked at pulling off his pants while Sebastian yanked off his shirt. Kurt rolled on his stomach and reached off the edge of the bed for his suitcase, rummaging through his toiletries for the industrial sized box of condoms and the brand new bottle of lube that Sebastian bought for their trip. Apparently Sebastian had packed it in his bag instead because while Kurt started unpacking the contents of his luggage piece by piece, he felt a slick finger circle around his entrance. Kurt stopped his frantic unpacking and lay perfectly still, the bed dipping beneath him as Sebastian crawled up between his knees and fingered him.

"Was this what you were looking for, gorgeous?" Sebastian asked innocently as he put the bottle of lube into Kurt's hand.

"Partially," Kurt answered, camouflaging a whimper when Sebastian crooked his fingers just so. Half of his body still hung over the edge of the bed, the blood rushing to his brain making him deliciously dizzy.

"Oh," Sebastian said, rubbing that spot again until Kurt's mutters turned into a full-fledged moan. "How about this?" Sebastian pressed a gold coin into Kurt's other hand and attacked the spot again, grinning when Kurt bucked back against his hand, begging without words for more.

"But I thought you wanted me to make love to you?" Sebastian teased, pretending to sound hurt.

"I…I do," Kurt whined as Sebastian slowly slipped another finger in alongside the first. "But if you keep doing that, it's not going to matter."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?"

Sebastian took the gold coin from Kurt's hand and opened it, pulling out the condom and rolling it down his length. Kurt felt Sebastian hold his hips, slowly pushing his cock inside his stretched hole.

"Wh-what? Aren't you going to pull me back up on the bed?" Kurt gasped, his head still dangling over the edge.

"I don't know," Sebastian groaned, pushing in until he filled Kurt completely. "I kind of like the view from here."

Kurt giggled until Sebastian started to move, effortless and smooth and perfect as always.

"Well, this is…interesting…" Kurt gripped the edge of the mattress, his arms straining to keep his body from toppling over the edge.

"Interesting…_hmph_…bad or…oh_God_… interesting good?" Sebastian grunted, tightening his grip on Kurt's hips and moving faster, pounding harder.

"Uh…interesting good…" Kurt said, "but kinda scary…"

Kurt reared back to meet Sebastian's thrust, his knees threatening to slip. Kurt wound his legs around Sebastian's thighs, the need to stay completely still while Sebastian fucked him becoming suddenly crucial.

"That's right, baby," Sebastian mumbled. "Hold on tight. Just a bit more."

Something about the way Sebastian held him, strong and secure, made Kurt loosen his grip on the bed, trusting that Sebastian wasn't going to let him fall. He held himself still, as still as his burning muscles could keep him, and let Sebastian control his body. Control – it played an important role in their relationship. Kurt spent so much time building and keeping and maintaining control.

It was nice to have these moments where he could give all of it to Sebastian.

"Oh, Seb," Kurt said, rolling his head on his shoulders, "yes…right there…God, yes…"

Kurt heard Sebastian chuckle beneath his grunts and moans, but something about Kurt's mindless babbling spurred him on, and he moved faster, plunging as deep into Kurt's body as he could. Sebastian's fingers dug into Kurt's hips and Kurt smiled, so close to the edge of his own orgasm he could feel it rolling through his body like a wave, but even more than that he loved the subtle and not-so subtle signs Sebastian gave him that told him he was there with him.

The way Sebastian's nails bit into his skin.

The way his hips stuttered unevenly in an attempt to maintain his pace.

The low whine that morphed from a guttural noise to a symphony of chants that included, "Yes!"…"God"… and Kurt's favorite – "Kurt…my gorgeous Kurt…"

Without this, sex would mean nothing; it wouldn't be special. It wouldn't cross that boundary between animal act to spiritual connection. Kurt let himself go when he felt Sebastian's whole body shudder behind him, when his grip loosened from Kurt's hips, when the only coherent word tumbling from his lips was a simple whispered, "Kurt…Kurt…Kurt…"

Sebastian snaked an arm around Kurt's waist and pulled his spent body back up the bed.

"Was that what you wanted, gorgeous?" Sebastian whispered, planting delicate kisses down Kurt's neck.

"Meh, it was close enough," Kurt taunted. Sebastian smacked Kurt on the ass, and Kurt jumped, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep from yelping too loudly and waking up his dad.

"Just for that, you get to clean us up," Sebastian said, carefully pulling the condom from his softening cock, tying the end, and handing it indelicately to Kurt. Kurt grimaced, taking it between the very tips of his fingers and tossing it in a nearby trash can. He didn't want to put on any clothing and he didn't want to chance racing down the hallway naked, so he grabbed his own white t-shirt and cleaned himself off with it, praying that Carole didn't try and sneak in to do their laundry. He climbed back on the bed to where Sebastian lay, reclining against a pyramid of pillows, his arms folded behind his head, grinning smugly as Kurt cleaned off his abs and his flaccid cock.

"How did I not notice after all the time we spent together just how much of an ass you are?" Kurt joked, but there was something in the shift of expression on Kurt's face, a fleeting hint of hurt, that tugged at Sebastian's heart. He grabbed the shirt and tugged it out of Kurt's hands, throwing it to the floor. He gathered Kurt into his arms and held him, rolling onto his side so he could pull the comforter over Kurt's body.

"I don't mean anything by it," Sebastian whispered, brushing a few sweaty strands out of Kurt's eyes and kissing him on the forehead. "I guess you didn't get to see much of my asshole side, but I'm not trying to hurt your feelings."

Kurt nodded, looping his arms around Sebastian's neck.

"Maybe I'm a little oversensitive," he divulged, "being back here after all these years. It's like tearing open all sorts of wounds, just to find out they were never really healed to begin with."

Sebastian ran his lips lightly over Kurt's cheek.

"There's my writer," Sebastian said. "My brilliant author."

Kurt planted a small kiss to the hollow of Sebastian's neck.

"I think we both have a lot of open wounds out here," Sebastian said, threading long fingers through Kurt's hair, working gently through a few tangles. "How about I help you mend yours if you help me mend mine?"

Kurt wove a leg through Sebastian's and pulled him close, snuggling into his embrace and trying to lie as close to his boyfriend as possible.

"I think I can do that," Kurt whispered, placing a kiss above Sebastian's breast bone where his heart thrummed against his skin. "I think I can do that."


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** _Warning for anxiety, mention of Finn and Blaine, and comfort sex._

Sebastian woke in his favorite way – with Kurt wrapped around him, his body pressed against him, lined up together almost perfectly from hip to hip, knee to knee, chest to chest, ending where their foreheads rested together. They had nearly drifted completely to sleep after making love earlier that morning, but somewhere between soft, even breathing and the start of the most amazing dream, Kurt shook Sebastian awake, frantic because they were both still naked. Kurt had said that he wanted more than anything for the two of them to sleep together this way, but after much mental deliberation he decided it wasn't the best idea. Since they were spending the night in his father's house, Kurt insisted on wearing pajamas, and Sebastian, pouting like a toddler, eventually gave in. He didn't want Kurt to feel uncomfortable by any means, but he much preferred Kurt without any clothes. Barriers like cotton and flannel made Sebastian miss the smooth skin of Kurt's chest, the feel of his muscles shifting when Kurt tightened his body around him; he even missed the feeling of the old scars and marks beneath his fingertips as he rubbed over Kurt's back.

Other than that, he couldn't complain. It might not be France like they planned (not yet, at least), but in its own way it was calm and soothing. The rising sun gradually warmed his face. His gorgeous boyfriend laid over him. The soft hum of the morning murmured in his ears, which was something he hadn't been able to truly enjoy for a long time.

To be honest, he thought it would be years before he ever returned to Ohio again, even if he was two hours away from his family home, it was still part of their destination. A day or two and he would be back, facing the man who disowned him as a son and left him with nothing.

Sebastian pushed all thoughts of Westerville and his father from his mind and sighed, feeling tranquil and whole.

Whole because of Kurt - because he had Kurt to love.

He wanted to lie beneath Kurt for the entire day but his own traitorous body had other needs, and those needs were becoming increasingly desperate. Sebastian slipped carefully from beneath his exhausted boyfriend, moving him ever so gently so that he wouldn't wake up. He stood beside the bed for a few seconds to make sure that Kurt wouldn't wake, and when it was obvious he was dead to the world for the time being, Sebastian shuffled off to the restroom. He didn't know whether or not Burt and Carole were morning people. He tiptoed quietly past their room in case they had decided to sleep in as well.

The whimsical bathroom looked much bigger since the sun came up than it had during the wee morning hours. Now that he had more time to look at the walls with their quirky pictures of tropical fish swimming around, swaying ropes of kelp, sea stars in various shades of red and pink, and a family of weedy sea dragons hiding behind a coral reef, he could appreciate all the care and effort Carole put in to decorating.

For as long as he could remember Sebastian's father had their home professionally decorated. Sebastian's room looked more like a study or a den than a little boy's bedroom. No matter how the rest of the house changed, his room always seemed to stay the same – dark wood furniture (traditional - made to last the ages), and walls painted in shades of slate blue, Harvard red, and pine green - masculine colors as his dad referred to them. As a child Sebastian spent the better part of two years begging his dad for a Transformers themed bedroom, but his father said no. Their house didn't ever feel like a home but more of a showcase, stylish and meticulously maintained, as if one family photo too many or a poster of Optimus Prime would lower its resale value. It was neat, tasteful, and extremely impersonal, which was probably why his mother traveled with him a lot. Home was more of a concept for Sebastian than a place. It didn't matter how far away his mother took him from Westerville because she could make anywhere feel like home.

To Sebastian, Kurt was much the same. Home would always be wherever Kurt was.

Sebastian realized after his foot fell asleep that he wasn't actually using the bathroom anymore, but standing and staring blankly at the walls. He washed his hands and headed back to the bedroom, longing for Kurt's company but happy that he was still blissfully asleep.

Sebastian threw on the t-shirt and jeans he had laid out for the day, and then tromped downstairs to the kitchen in search of coffee. Considering what Sebastian suspected Kurt had planned, he would need at least three strong cups of black coffee to keep him awake and sane.

Sebastian hunted through the cabinets and found the motherload - an industrial sized can of Columbian Roast. He smiled.

These were definitely his kind of people.

He filled the coffee machine with water and measured out enough grounds for everyone to have at least one cup a piece. He plugged the machine in and switched it on. Sebastian stood by the counter and waited, begging quietly for Mr. Coffee to hurry up and percolate before he fell to sleep on his feet.

He closed his eyes, letting the aroma of the coffee work its way into his brain as he listened to the sounds of the neighborhood coming alive through the open kitchen window. The high-pitched buzz of a saw overpowered the blossoming low murmur of life around him. It sounded loud and close - from somewhere near the house, but outside. He followed the sound through the living room and out the front door. The garage door hung open, the whirring sound growing louder and more daunting as he approached. He peeked his head around the edge and saw Burt with a cordless jigsaw in hand, cutting a heart shape out of a piece of light colored wood. The older man looked visibly upset, lack of sleep etching deep lines into his skin. Sebastian watched him work, wondering if something might be wrong with his heart despite all of Carole's assurances. Sebastian debated whether or not he should run upstairs and wake Kurt. Burt stopped the saw and put it down on the workbench. He took off his cap and safety goggles to wipe a hand across his brow, and Sebastian could see that Burt had been crying.

Sebastian turned away. He felt like he was intruding, that he had stumbled upon something he wasn't meant to see. He decided to back away and leave the man alone with his thoughts. Climbing back into bed was probably the safest move for him anyway. Maybe he could persuade Kurt into some morning sex before breakfast to set the mood for the day. He took one step, his foot crunching a dried-up dead leaf, the crackling sound louder than Sebastian would have thought possible. Burt looked up, saw Sebastian lingering by the door, and frowned, not too thrilled by the invasion into his private ritual.

"Is that a Dewalt?" Sebastian asked, pointing to the yellow and black piece of equipment sitting by the man's hands. All hopes of a subtle escape dashed, he prayed for a decent save instead.

"Yeah," Burt said with a curious tilt of his head, looking down at the saw as if to make sure. "The wife…she, uh, got it for me the Christmas after Kurt took off. I started a lot of projects. I guess I needed something to take my mind off things."

Sebastian walked slowly into the converted work space. His eyes swept around the room: peg boards on the walls with tools hanging in orderly rows, wrenches sized from smallest to largest, cabinets with multitudes of tiny drawers for nails and screws. It reminded him so much of Kurt's old house - a place for everything, and everything in its place. Numerous cut-out wooden shapes littered the bench beside the saw – hearts, ducklings, stars, what might be a cat once it had a face painted on it. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw what looked like a half-finished cradle shoved in the corner.

"What project are you working on now, if you don't mind my asking?" Sebastian stopped in front of the bench, keeping a comfortable distance between him and the man with the power tools at his disposal.

Burt cleared his throat, looking from the saw to the shapes, eyes shifting nervously in the direction of the cradle, his face coloring with a twinge of embarrassment.

"Uh, well…it was supposed to be…well, it still is…"

Burt sighed, eyes finding their way back to the jigsaw he had put down on the bench.

"Did Kurt tell you that his stepbrother…"

"Yeah," Sebastian said softly. "Yeah, he did."

Sebastian didn't ask how, and Burt didn't offer. Sebastian didn't care. Knowing how Finn died wouldn't change the fact that he was gone; it wouldn't make Kurt not being there to mourn the loss with his family and friends any less tragic.

"Well, he and his fiancée were talking about starting a family. This…" He gestured back to the unfinished piece of furniture. "…was for them."

Sebastian nodded.

"It might seem ridiculous for me to finish it, but I don't like to leave things unfinished," Burt explained. He rubbed the back of his neck, scratching at the nape below his hairline where a fine layer of sawdust had settled, irritating his skin.

"Well, who knows? Maybe it will get use someday," Sebastian said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Burt's head snapped up suddenly, and Sebastian feared he had unintentionally offended the man.

It wouldn't be the first time his mouth got him into trouble.

It wouldn't even be the first time that day.

"Look," Burt said, shifting uncomfortably on his feet but keeping his eyes locked on Sebastian's face, "you and I didn't talk much last night, but I need to know…do you love my son?"

"Yes, I do, sir," Sebastian said without hesitation. "More than anything. More than I love myself."

Burt chewed on the inside of his cheek while he considered Sebastian's hasty reply.

"Does he know that?" Burt asked, narrowing his eyes at this man who swept into his life out of the blue and had already laid claim to the most precious thing Burt loved.

"Yes, he does," Sebastian affirmed. "I tell him every day."

Burt stared at Sebastian, eyes searching his face for any trace of dishonesty as Sebastian stared unwaveringly back.

Burt nodded.

"Good," he said. "That's good. Kurt deserves to have someone who loves him that much."

"I agree, sir," Sebastian said.

"It's Burt."

_'Rhymes with Kurt,'_ Sebastian thought, remembering what Kurt had said about the meaning of his name when they first met.

"You want to help me with some sanding there, Sebastian?" Burt asked, motioning to a pile of wood pieces in front of him. "And then maybe you can help me fill in some gaps for the three years my son's been gone."

Sebastian smiled, reaching for the piece, a heart, closest to him.

"To tell you the truth," Sebastian started, taking a well-worn sheet of sandpaper from Burt's outstretched hand, "I learn a little more about the details every day, and I don't want to give you second hand spotty information. There's a lot of stuff that Kurt should tell you for himself."

"Okay," Burt said, focusing on sanding a wooden heart of his own, "why don't you start from when the two of you met, and we'll work our way from there."

Sebastian thought about that day, a secret and suggestive smile curling his lips. He pictured Kurt in his head, wrapped in his dressing gown, and that sassy tongue of his - Sebastian sighed without realizing it and when he looked back at Burt, he was smirking beneath the brim of his cap.

"Well," Sebastian said, sitting up straight and trying to find the best way to translate 'your son was a bitch but I thought he had a nice ass' into something he could say in front of Kurt's father. "I worked with FedEx, and Kurt was on my route. That's how we met."

"And…" Burt asked when Sebastian didn't rush to divulge anything else.

"And, uh…" Sebastian never realized how many private moments they had shared, things he wasn't eager to tell anyone because they were sacred. They had taken a journey that belonged solely to the two of them…and to a degree Madeline and Justice, their best friends. It seemed wrong to discuss it without Kurt's permission.

"Sebastian, I don't know why my son left us, really…"

Sebastian opened his mouth but Burt silenced him with a look that said _'I'm not finished'_.

"I don't expect you to tell me. I want to hear it from him, but I know there's something that happened recently…" Burt swallowed, gripping the wooden heart he was shaping until his hand shook. "Blaine…when he called…he told me that Kurt was attacked…"

The last word was a whisper, all sharp edges, hard to get out without coughing around it.

"When I met your son, he was being stalked," Sebastian said, keeping the emotion far removed from his own voice, afraid of breaking down and telling Burt more than he intended. This was a conversation Kurt needed to have with his father - Sebastian was sure of it - but he wasn't about to disrespect this man. He deserved more than Sebastian dodging his requests. Besides, he knew how difficult it was to get Kurt to open up about anything.

Burt had a right to know.

"This man hurt your son…" Sebastian paused and watched the effect of his words. He didn't know the extent of Burt's health problems, but he erred on the side of caution, not wanting to stress Burt out and endanger his health. Burt put the wooden heart down on the bench and stared at Sebastian, waiting for him to continue. Sebastian continued.

"He pushed Kurt into the street and twisted his ankle. He terrorized Kurt at night, trying to break into his house, trying to scare him."

"Why would he want to scare my son?" Burt asked, his voice wavering.

Sebastian inhaled deep.

"He wanted your son," Sebastian said clearly so he wouldn't have to repeat himself. Sebastian could confess to it once, but twice would tear him to pieces. "He felt that Kurt belonged to him."

Burt's head bobbed, his eyes shifting away to stare at the saw on the bench, probably trying to imagine all the ways he could take Kurt's stalker apart.

"And what did you do?" Burt growled, glaring at Sebastian in the other man's stead, needing a face to aim his anger at.

"I spent every day with him," Sebastian said without taking offense. "I moved in with him. A friend and I upped the security on his house. I even bought a Taser and a gun to protect him."

Burt's glare softened, but Sebastian could see that he still needed to lash out, to break something, to hurt someone so that he could make it all better, even though there was nothing he could do to fix things. The past was the past, and no amount of wishing or murderous thoughts would change it.

"How did he get to my son?"

"He outsmarted us," Sebastian admitted sheepishly. "We underestimated him."

"Who is he?" Burt seethed, his hand balling into a fist and pounding the bench. "Why does he think he has a right to my son?"

Sebastian tried to think of a way to explain without having to tell Burt the whole tale of Dave and the abuse that Kurt endured.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Burt deduced, loosening his fist and letting his hand drop limp at his side. Sebastian shook his head, steeped with guilt. He understood Burt's feeling of helplessness, bred from a rage that had no resolution.

"I would really rather…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Burt said. He sighed in frustration and returned to his work, picking up the heart and the sand paper.

Sebastian returned to his shape half-heartedly, waiting for Burt to continue, knowing he wasn't about to be left off the hook that easy.

"So, what are your guys' plans?" Burt asked, putting the heart away and smoothing out some rough edges on a scrolled piece of wood.

"Well, we're going to visit my folks in Westerville," Sebastian said, watching as the man worked a tiny file through the intricate pattern. "Then we're going to Paris, England, Italy, wherever Kurt wants to go."

Burt's eyes flicked up again, his eyes almost burning red.

"I just got my son back, and you're going to take him away from me?" Burt accused.

"Not at all," Sebastian said, keeping calm as best he could without relying on sarcasm. "We'll leave when Kurt's ready to leave, and not a day before."

Burt let Sebastian's answer settle in his brain, mulling over what the man was saying.

"So, if he wanted to stay in Lima for…say…a couple of days…" Burt trailed off, leaving the question open ended, the ball bouncing on Sebastian's side of the court.

"A couple of days, a couple of weeks, and couple of months, it's really up to him."

"And what would you do?"

Sebastian's eyes widened in surprise.

"I'd stay with him."

Burt's eyelids narrowed.

"You would put your life, and your plans, on hold, to hang out here in Lima with my son?"

"Yes, sir," Sebastian said. "Yes, I would."

* * *

><p>It was surreal for Kurt to wake up in his father's house, not to mention completely alone. It jarred him so deeply that there was a moment when he thought he might have actually traveled back in time, or even more confusing, that the last few years had been nothing more than some tortuous, complicated dream. Maybe he was sick with the flu or pneumonia and everything he thought had happened to him had been a lie. If that was the case, Blaine never cheated on him, he never got together with David, he didn't meet Sebastian, and Chandler never attacked him.<p>

Blaine never cheated.

He never met Sebastian.

Would he prefer this scenario? It was the road that came with the least amount of pain, physical and emotional, but would he really trade what he had with Sebastian for a future with Blaine?

The answer was undoubtedly no. It didn't matter that he had to go through several layers of hell before he found Sebastian. He'd do it again. He climbed out of bed and got dressed, smiling at the memory of making love to Sebastian hours before. He cherished that memory, held on to it, replayed it over and over again, letting every touch, every breath, every word meld into his muscles and bones and give him strength.

He knew that today he would need it.

Kurt followed the aroma of coffee down the stairs and to the kitchen, surprised that no one else beside himself and Sebastian seemed to be awake. The coffee machine hissed and steamed away, but the kitchen was empty. Where was his boyfriend, anyway?

He heard laughter coming in through the open window, two men's voices that were so engrained in his brain he could distinguish them anywhere - his father and Sebastian. Kurt wondered if his dad had connived Sebastian into letting him take a peek at his magnificent Porsche, but he heard the whir of a saw and knew that they'd most likely be in the garage.

He hoped that the laughing was a good sign…and that his boyfriend still had all his appendages attached.

He switched off the coffee maker and wandered outside.

"You should have seen it…" Kurt heard Sebastian's voice first. "He had the biggest…"

Kurt's eyes went wide and he raced forward, hoping he'd make it in time to field whatever inappropriate comment Sebastian was about to make.

"Seb!" Kurt yelled, waving his arms wildly. Sebastian turned and looked at Kurt's face, raising an eyebrow at the new nickname that seemed to crop up into Kurt's vocabulary overnight.

"…collection of rare vegetables you've ever seen," Sebastian finished while Burt guffawed so loudly, it lured Carole down from her bedroom.

"What's going on down here, guys?" she asked, yawning, half-lidded drowsy eyes hopping questioningly from one man's face to the other. She smiled at the sight of the three men gathered in the garage, laughing and talking. It felt like old times, even if some of the faces were different. She wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist and leaned into his side, needing a little extra assurance that her stepson was home.

"Nothing much," Burt assured his wife, wiping the tears from his eyes with a bandana from his pocket. "Just shooting the…"

"Burt!" Carole warned, which set the boys to laughing once again.

"Poop," Burt said, "I was going to say poop."

"Sure you were." Carole shared a knowing wink with Kurt.

"As I was saying," Burt continued, "I was out here shooting the poop with Sebastian here since we didn't get much time to talk earlier."

"Well, have you boys given any thought to what you want to do today?" Carole asked. Sebastian sobered up completely. He looked to Kurt and the way his face fell told Sebastian that his suspicions had been correct.

Kurt gave Carole a squeeze once to soften the blow.

"I would like to go visit Finn's grave…please."

* * *

><p>It was a heavy admission to make before breakfast, and Sebastian knew that all the coffee in the world would be useless now.<p>

They prepared for the trip in silence. Sebastian was grateful he had packed a classic black suit for dinner with his parents. He hadn't really been expecting a visit to the cemetery. Kurt hadn't had the chance to get a new suit, but Sebastian had bought Kurt a brand new wardrobe right before they left the hotel, so he made do with a pair of black slacks and an understated charcoal grey shirt, brought together with a simple thin black belt and tie. Sebastian watched Kurt fidget with the cuff, grimacing at his reflection in his full length mirror.

"You look very handsome in grey," Sebastian said, coming up behind Kurt and smoothing out his collar.

"No," Kurt argued with the hint of a sniffle, "_you_ look handsome. You look…amazing." Kurt's eyes traveled up Sebastian's reflection in the mirror and when their eyes met, Sebastian could see how watery his glasz blue eyes had become. "I look like I'm going to a job interview."

"Well, if it's any consolation _I'd_ hire you on the spot." Sebastian pecked a gentle kiss on Kurt's neck above his collar.

Kurt sighed, dropping his gaze in frustration. Sebastian put his hands on Kurt's shoulders and turned him away from the mirror.

"We shouldn't be going…" Kurt rambled. "I should wait a few days and get a proper suit. I shouldn't have sprung this on them like I did. It's cruel. I…"

Sebastian's lips against his were comforting, quieting.

"It's not cruel," Sebastian whispered. "And you look fine. Go in jeans and a t-shirt. Go in your pajamas."

Kurt giggled. He let Sebastian brush another kiss against his lips.

"It doesn't matter what you wear, Kurt. The people who matter won't mind. I think you're right. I think you need to go. If you back out now, you'll always find an excuse not to go."

Kurt nodded, and Sebastian kissed his forehead.

"You're right," Kurt agreed, taking Sebastian's hands in his. "I need to go."

They caravanned with Burt and Carole leading the way in Burt's truck, Sebastian and Kurt following at a respectful distance in the Porsche. Kurt's eyes trailed out the window and up to the clear, blue sky overhead. In his arms he cradled a small bouquet of white roses he cut from Carole's garden. Seeing stepmom and stepson pick through the nearly spent bushes looking for the perfect blooms reminded Sebastian of the lazy afternoons he spent with his mother dead-heading roses in her garden. The realization that he would see her soon, see for himself how much her mind had deteriorated, haunted him, but he refused to let it show. Kurt needed to mourn without worrying about Sebastian's fears.

Kurt and Carole had chosen enough roses for both Finn and Kurt's mom's graves.

Sebastian had been wrong earlier. He didn't need coffee to get through this. He needed a nice, strong shot of tequila.

The Lima Cemetery sat on a stretch of land on the complete opposite side of town, and in the grand tradition of cemeteries it was about the size of a small city and already overflowing with graves. The streets within its gates wound around in dizzying circles, spiraling up with the rise of the land and back down again without a single road sign in sight. Sebastian was surprised at first that Burt seemed to know his way around as well as he did, but then it hit him how often he had probably been to this cemetery in the last fifteen or so years.

Burt pulled over by the curb at the bottom of a swell of green grass and parked. Sebastian stopped a foot or behind his truck and killed the engine.

Both men sighed in unison.

"Are you ready for this?" Sebastian asked, turning in his seat to face his boyfriend. Kurt bent his head and sniffed the roses, pressing the delicate petals to his nose, taking a deep breath of their light fragrance.

"I think so," he said. He saw his father struggle to get out of his truck and then hobble up the hill hand in hand with Carole leading him along. He watched them, watched the way his father leaned forward for balance and stumbled every third step or so. Kurt shuddered. All these years he had hidden, cut himself off from his family and friends with the singular thought that he was keeping his father safe, but he was wrong.

Dave didn't find his father, but time did. It passed by regardless and with each day it took a little bit more of Burt Hummel's life with it.

Kurt didn't notice when Sebastian had gotten out of the car and rounded to his side, opening the door for him. Kurt slid out of his seat and stood up straight, rolling his shoulders to get the kinks to unravel but the tension in his shoulders continued to ratchet with the thought of every step that would carry him up that hill. They walked slowly, Sebastian keeping a secure hand locked on Kurt's elbow, hoping to absorb some of Kurt's burden.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

Kurt glanced over at his dad already standing with his head bowed in front of a large, rectangular headstone.

"G-give me a minute with my stepbrother…and my dad alone. Okay?" Kurt requested. Sebastian nodded. He knew what Kurt needed to say to both of them.

"Do you want me to leave for a bit?" Sebastian asked.

"No," Kurt answered quickly, a fleeting look of panic flashing through his eyes at the thought of Sebastian leaving the cemetery. "No, don't leave. I need you…here. I need…just…"

Sebastian pulled a tissue from his pocket and pressed it into Kurt's hand. Kurt sniffled, taking the tissue with a weak smile and patting at his eyes.

Sebastian watched Kurt march numbly to where his dad stood, lost in thought at the grave of his stepson. Carole busied herself tidying up, picking up dead leaves and dried flowers, taking out her own handkerchief to wipe away some of the dust and dirt from the grey colored stone. Kurt took his father's arm gently and the two of them hugged. From where he stood, Sebastian could clearly see the older man's face, trying hard to be stoic and strong but bordering on the edge of breaking. Kurt looked down at the grave as Carole stood. He crouched down and carefully laid a few of the flowers he had brought. Sebastian held the rest. The blooms disappeared immediately among numerous bouquets and other offerings – pinwheels, footballs, drumsticks, photographs and sheet music, some aged and worn, some looked as if they were placed at the grave yesterday. Sebastian didn't know much about Finn Hudson; he and Kurt didn't talk about Kurt's stepbrother much, but from the look of his grave, the love that had been showered there, Sebastian was beginning to piece together the image of a man who was adored by many.

The Hudson-Hummels weren't the only ones who lost a brother and a son.

It seemed like the whole town lost one, too.

The trio made an attempt at normalcy – casual conversation overshadowed with uncomfortable laughter while they rehashed old memories. Once or twice Kurt threw his head back and laughed, but Sebastian could tell that his laughter wasn't carefree the way it should have been, too worried with what would come at the next awkward pause in conversation. That moment came too quickly. Kurt's face drained of all color. He didn't look ready, and Sebastian wished he could find a way to give him more time, but even as the idea to interrupt with some fake emergency dawned on him, Kurt took hold of Carole's arm and put a hand on his dad's shoulder. He looked at a spot between them while he told his tale, not meeting either of their eyes. Sebastian watched the whole thing with the same rising tide of dread in his stomach that one might feel watching a car accident that you know is about to happen, you know you can't stop, and no matter how much you pray for something or someone to intervene, it doesn't.

Carole's eyes misted over and she brought a trembling hand to her mouth. Burt's mouth was set in a straight line that quivered every so often, eyes blinking intermittently to ward away tears. Both husband and wife held each other, slowly folding into one another as Kurt continued on, first hands holding onto arms for support, and then further on until they embraced each other so tightly that it was hard to tell where Carole's black dress ended and Burt's simple black suit began. Sebastian never once turned his head away even though it probably wasn't his place to witness this. He didn't look down at his watch to check the time. He didn't look up at the clouds that closed in overhead. He didn't turn to follow the path of other mourners that arrived at other gravesites, some sniffling quietly, some talking and laughing as if they were spending a sunny afternoon at the park.

A few times Kurt gestured in Sebastian's direction, and Carole and Burt threw corresponding glances his way.

When Kurt finished, Carole took him in her arms and cried against his shoulder, her chest heaving violently as she sobbed, wailing with all the pain she felt at almost losing another child. Kurt closed his arms around her to soothe her, whispering into her hair and placing kisses on the crown of her head. Burt turned to Sebastian. He looked furious, but there was more emotion in his green eyes than anger – confusion, resentment, regret. He stalked over to Sebastian, and Sebastian prepared to take a step away, or dodge a punch, if need be. Burt came up close, staring right into his eyes, searching for something. Sebastian glanced past Burt's face and saw Kurt staring at them both, his face red and blotchy. Sebastian knew what Burt was looking for. He raised a finger to his right eye and pulled down the skin of his lower lid, exposing a red fork on the white of his eye – the only injury from being Tasered by Chandler over and over that had yet to fade. Kurt thought it looked like a lightning strike, but Sebastian thought it looked more like the branch of an old tree. Whatever it resembled to Burt, it was enough to convince him. He put a hand on Sebastian's arm, squeezing lightly, and Sebastian returned the gesture. Burt fought to find something to say to the man who risked his life to save his son, but there was nothing, no words; even 'thank you' paled in comparison. After a moment, he gave up. He patted Sebastian on the shoulder and walked back to his truck.

It took longer for Carole to follow after Burt. Once she had Kurt in her arms she didn't want to let him go. Eventually she ran out of tears, but her body quaked uncontrollably, and at one point Sebastian feared she might faint. Kurt supported most of her weight and Sebastian could tell from the pained expression on his face how emotionally drained he was, but he was patient with his stepmother, and regardless of his own exhaustion he bore her tears with a tiny smile on his face.

Sebastian ambled up to them, picking his way through the grass, avoiding the soft dirt and patches of mud still wet from watering earlier in the day. Carole caught sight of Sebastian out of the corner of her eye and straightened up, wiping away what was left of her tears. She reached for her handkerchief and whimpered when she saw it was stained from cleaning the headstone. Sebastian took out the small packet of tissues in his pocket and offered her one.

"Always prepared, I see," Carole said with a wink, pulling a tissue from the pack and dabbing at her eyes. Kurt's eyes met Sebastian's. He saw the hint of humor in their green depths and Kurt's eyes widened like dinner plates, frantically pleading with him to curb his tongue. Sebastian bit his lip, rolling his eyes, silently agreeing to behave.

"I try," was all he said, winking back.

"Look at me," she said apologetically, fixing her dress and combing a finger through her hair, "fussing and carrying on. Why, what would Finn say?"

"I'm not sure," Kurt admitted with a shrug, "but whatever he would have said it probably wouldn't have come out right."

"Ain't that the truth," she laughed, shaking her head. "It still would have been perfect, though."

"Yup," Kurt said, wringing his hands in front of him and bowing his head. Carole regarded her stepson, and then Sebastian. Without warning she threw herself into Sebastian's arms, Kurt rushing forward and rescuing the roses in Sebastian's grasp.

"Thank you," she muttered, her voice hoarse from crying. "Thank you for bringing him back to us. I couldn't lose them both. I just couldn't. I…"

Sebastian held her tighter, rocking her slightly back and forth.

"You're welcome," Sebastian said, overwhelmed by her display of emotion. "Any time."

She chuckled, loosening her grip to look up into his face.

"Well, maybe just make sure that he doesn't get away again."

Sebastian bowed his head, smiling, and Carole kissed him on the cheek, patting his face gently. She stepped back and pulled the men together by the arm, standing them side by side.

"I should be getting your father back home before he tires himself out," Carole excused herself. "Will we see you gentlemen back at the house?"

"Of course," Kurt said, nodding. "We're going to visit my mom and then we'll be back." Kurt wrapped an arm around himself as a breeze blew by, spinning the pinwheels stuck in the ground, their foil blades beating against the wind. Kurt turned his face up to the sky, which had gone from a serene blue to a pale grey. "We'll try to make it back before it starts raining."

Carole took one last look at them, and one final glance at her son's grave, blowing a kiss in their direction. She turned and walked the path Sebastian did, around the puddles and avoiding the mud. Kurt watched her go until her head disappeared down the side of the hill, and when she was out of sight he fell into Sebastian's arms.

Sebastian rubbed Kurt's arms when he shivered with another passing breeze.

"How are you holding up, gorgeous?" Sebastian purred against Kurt's temple.

"I'm doing okay," Kurt said, and he did sound fine except that he spoke with little emotion, no smile anywhere in his voice. It was a blanket statement and Sebastian couldn't tell how much of it was true. Sebastian felt the start of raindrops, one here, two there, and knew that they were borrowing time.

"I think we had better get these roses to your mom before it starts to pour." Sebastian slipped off his jacket and put it around Kurt's shoulders. Kurt didn't resist being taken care of. He pulled at the lapels and wrapped himself up in Sebastian's residual heat and that signature musky smell that settled on all of his clothes. It made Kurt smile to be surrounded by it, like his warm hugs when they sat together on the couch, or when he laid beneath Sebastian when they made love. It was a smell that reminded him that he was loved and protected. He wished he could bottle it and carry it with him everywhere, something he could uncork and sniff when times got tough and Sebastian wasn't around.

God did Kurt hope Sebastian would always be around.

Sebastian got lost a few times trying to find the right side-road to Elizabeth Hummel's grave, and when he finally found it, the sky opened up and rain came down in sheets. They parked the Porsche and Sebastian unbuckled his seat belt with the intention of going with Kurt, but Kurt put a hand on his hand to stop him.

"Don't," Kurt said with a smile. "I'll only be a second."

"But…" Sebastian didn't know why he felt jilted by the idea that Kurt didn't want him to join him at his mother's grave.

"I'm just going to drop the flowers and leave," Kurt said. "No use both of us getting drenched and catching a cold. Besides, if you get sick, too, who will rub Vapo-rub on my chest and feed me chicken noodle soup?"

Sebastian's smile was half-hearted at best. Kurt leaned close and kissed the corner that wasn't putting in enough effort.

"You'll get to meet my mom another time," Kurt whispered, and fled out the door into the rain, a much more genuine smile from Sebastian following Kurt as he raced up the hill.

Sebastian didn't have an umbrella for Kurt to use, so Kurt sprinted, sliding a few times on his way up the slick grass. Sebastian bit his lip as he watched an overly cautious Kurt negotiate his way back down the hill, trying not to get wet, and getting thoroughly drenched instead. His shirt was soaked and clung to his torso in such a delicious way - accentuating every long line and muscle of his body - that Sebastian wanted to tear it off him the second he got in the car. Admiring the way Kurt's clothes hugged his body, Sebastian realized only vaguely that this was neither the time nor place.

"I'm sorry it's raining, gorgeous," Sebastian said, reaching into his duffel and producing a towel he accidentally smuggled out of the hotel with their other belongings, proving that while Kurt was meticulously packing, Sebastian had been grabbing things by the handful and shoving them into luggage. Kurt scrubbed his face dry with it before he realized what he held in his hands. He lowered the towel and glared at Sebastian with an eyebrow raised.

"They'll never miss it," Sebastian said, waving the topic away with his hand.

"I guess considering what you paid for that room they could part with a towel or two." Kurt decided to let it go and continued drying his body. When he felt he was dry enough, he folded the towel and put it beneath his rear to protect Sebastian's seats. He carefully removed the charcoal colored shirt and hung it from the hooks on his head rest. Sebastian watched drops of rain water, stragglers that Kurt hadn't managed to wipe away, roll down his neck and collect at the ridge of his collar bone. He licked his lips, imagining sucking the drops off one at a time as they sped down Kurt's neck, of drinking them off his shoulders, following their trail wherever they traveled with his tongue, heating Kurt's chilled skin with his mouth.

"You know," Sebastian said, clearing his throat, "if we weren't in a cemetery…or at least, not this cemetery…"

Kurt shot Sebastian a mortified glare that broke the tension – sexual or otherwise – and Sebastian laughed, ducking his head out of the way when Kurt reached out and smacked him on the arm.

The playful laughter and much needed levity didn't last for long. Sebastian drove slowly out of the cemetery, taking extra care because of the rain, and Kurt settled into another lengthy silence, lost deep in his thoughts, staring up at the rain falling on the window. Sebastian assumed he was thinking about Finn, but he could have been thinking about his talk with his dad and stepmom, or about his own mother. Heck, he could be thinking about their upcoming trip itinerary (it hadn't really been brought up again since they got to Lima), or of having wild, filthy sex in the car. For the first time in a while Sebastian didn't know what Kurt was thinking, and it didn't seem entirely right to ask. Kurt would come to him in his own time. He always did.

The house was quiet for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Carole and Burt went about their lives, not really ignoring Kurt and Sebastian, but more like avoiding the possibility that someone might want to discuss what happened hours earlier and risk tearing open more wounds. Burt holed up back in the garage to work on his projects while Carole bustled around the house, folding laundry and vacuuming every conceivable surface, even breaking out the upholstery wand to do the couch and the curtains. It seemed like normal housework, but as Sebastian watched her he began to believe that she might have been looking for more to do, something to keep her busy, keep her moving forward.

After the sofa was deemed completely dust free, Kurt sat with his back against the arm and his legs tented over Sebastian's lap, revising the manuscript to his book, red pen in hand, making notes in the margin, crossing some lines out, adding new lines here and there. Sebastian borrowed a copy of the daily paper, but halfway through the headlines he abandoned the periodical in favor of watching his boyfriend work, letting his mind wander with every shift of his eyes and every swipe of his pen.

He thought about everything that led him to this point, the events playing in his mind, rapid fire and out of order like some disjointed movie. One moment he was singing to Kurt on the hilltop overlooking Kurt's neighborhood, running his hands over the seam of Kurt's jeans, and the next he was watching Kurt dance with those two greasy, curly haired hobbits. Sebastian sometimes wondered what happened to them, less out of curiosity and more out of a desire to run them over with his Porsche. Morbidly his mind drifted to Chandler, those icy eyes staring at them, the high pitched way he spoke, nothing like Kurt's musical voice, but more like some sadistic cartoon villain, which he kind of was.

It surprised Sebastian that Chandler's was the face of evil.

He always imagined evil to look more intensely terrifying, though being at the end of a Taser wire was terrifying enough for Sebastian, so he let that thought dissolve into the next, a much happier thought - him and Kurt kissing for the first time up in Kurt's bedroom, when falling for each other was unexpected and brand new.

Kurt caught Sebastian staring at him with a goofy grin on his face and chuckled, shaking his head and returning to his manuscript with a new little smile on his lips.

No one was too much in the mood to cook, so Carole ordered delivery from some local Italian place called _Breadstix_. Sebastian asked Kurt if the food there was any good. Kurt rolled his eyes to the ceiling, giving the matter some thought, and then looked back at Sebastian and shrugged. Sebastian didn't expect too much.

Sometime before the food arrived, Richard texted out of the blue.

_To Sebastian_

_From Richard_

_Dinner tomorrow night. Urgent. Too much to text. Please tell me you'll be there!_

Kurt looked up again, expecting another adorable smile aimed his way. Instead Sebastian frowned down at his phone, brow furrowed, green eyes going over the lines of text on the screen over and over.

"Is everything alright, honey?" Kurt asked, touching his arm gently to get his attention.

"What?" Sebastian's eyes flicked up to meet Kurt's. "Uh…yeah, I guess…no."

"What's wrong?"

Sebastian turned the phone to Kurt and let him read the text for himself.

"What do you think it means?" Kurt asked.

Sebastian shook his head, reading the text again, trying to unearth the hidden meaning.

"I don't know," Sebastian admitted. "Richard's been really vague lately about problems at home. Whatever it is, I'm sure it has something to do with my mom and my dad."

Sebastian grimaced over the final word. Kurt squeezed his arm tighter.

"It's going to be okay, Sebastian," Kurt said softly. "I promise."

"Are you okay going a few days earlier? To dinner at my folks, I mean." Sebastian clarified, not wanting Kurt to get the wrong idea and think that they would be leaving his father sooner than expected.

"Of course." Kurt ran his hand down Sebastian's arm to his hand and took it, bringing it to his lips and kissing his knuckles. "We're here for you, too. It's not only my family we're here to visit."

"Dinner's here, guys," Burt called in from the kitchen, having intercepted the delivery driver in the driveway and walking the food in after shutting up the garage.

"Ugh," Kurt moaned, forcing himself off the sofa.

"You sound excited," Sebastian said, helping Kurt along by pushing his legs off his lap. "We're about to have the food of your high school years. Doesn't it bring back a rush of wonderful nostalgia?"

Kurt fixed Sebastian with a dramatic glare.

"Sebastian Smythe, if you want to get any kind of sex later on, you won't even joke about that."

Sebastian's face went blank.

"Joke about what?" Sebastian grabbed Kurt's hand and pulled him into the kitchen. "I didn't say a thing."

Burt was getting plates down from the cabinet and Carole had already set most of the round, aluminum to-go containers out on the table by the time Kurt and Sebastian joined them.

"We're going to open them up and let you guys dish out what you want," Carole said cheerily.

Sebastian pulled out a chair from the table for Kurt.

"Sounds good to me," Sebastian agreed, though to be honest not a thing in those containers smelled the least bit appetizing. From the hidden scowl on the corner of Kurt's mouth, his lips pinching together tight when the first container opened and a fog of trapped heat billowed out, Sebastian assumed Kurt felt much the same way. Regardless, he took two forks and started digging in to a container of Fettuccini Alfredo, scooping out less than a mouthful and plopping it onto his plate. The sauce coating the noodles looked lumpy and congealed, held together in a bizarre mound formation and not moving another inch.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Sebastian whispered into Kurt's ear, his voice obscured by the clanging of forks on plates. Burt, who didn't quite hold to ceremony, took one of the foil containers of food, an overflowing portion of lasagna, and dug in without the benefit of a plate.

"That's the best you're going to get," Kurt snickered, hiding behind a cough when Carole looked his way.

Kurt and Sebastian had settled in with a scoop each of five different meals on their plates, a rainbow spectacle of various sauces and tri-colored pasta. Kurt giggled when Sebastian stabbed his knot of spinach linguine and the noodles held the fork. They chuckled together like teenagers. Sebastian put his hand on his boyfriend's knee and nibbled at a spot on his neck while Burt ignored them blatantly when the smallest, most painful sound ever uttered stopped them.

Carole gasped, gazing down at the last open container on the table in front of her, her hand to her chest, a strangely horrified expression on her face.

"What's wrong, babe?" Burt asked. Gripping the edge of the table he pushed himself to his feet and stood beside his wife. He blinked down at the food on the table and then sighed. He put his hands on her arms to keep her steady.

"I didn't…" she muttered, her voice shaking. "I didn't even think. We haven't eaten there in so long, and I…I guess it was automatic…"

"It's okay," Burt said quietly, pulling her against him. She looked up around at the room, as if she expected more people, or at least one other person. "It's alright."

Carole nodded, a few tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You know, I…I don't think I'm all that hungry after all," Carole said. She didn't catch the eyes of anyone else in the room, slipping out of Burt's embrace and heading for the door. "I think I need to lie down."

Burt turned to his son and Sebastian and saw confusion and sympathy in their eyes.

"Sometimes it, you know, it hits her out of the blue. But she'll be alright in the morning." Burt nodded, talking down to the dish of food on the table, talking more to himself then the other men in the room. Burt turned away from the table and followed his wife without even a goodnight.

Kurt pushed his plate away.

"I think I'm going to pack this up and put it in the fridge," he said, standing from the table and collecting the various foil containers. He rounded the table and caught sight of the dish that sent Carole out of the room. Sebastian stood and joined him, looking at the thin pasta piled high with breaded chicken and smothered in melted cheese and sauce.

"Chicken parmigiana," Kurt said. "That was…that was Finn's dish when we ordered out. No one else ever ate it. It tasted like rubber cement on cardboard. I don't think he ever tasted it. I don't think he ever really chewed." Kurt chuckled sadly. "He just took it at face value that it was supposed to taste good, so to him it did. He was like that with everything, with everybody. He just, liked everyone until they proved him wrong, and then he'd give them a second chance…and a third…"

Kurt felt himself start to collapse, but Sebastian was there to catch him.

"It's alright, Kurt," Sebastian said, holding Kurt in his arms. "Your stepbrother sounds like an amazing guy."

Kurt's eyes stayed glued to the chicken pieces a moment longer, then turned to Sebastian.

"I need to take a long, hot shower," Kurt muttered. "Is it possible to actually wash a whole day away?"

"Yes," Sebastian said firmly. "Yes, it is. So why don't you head upstairs and get our towels and shit, and let me finish this up?" Sebastian offered.

Kurt nodded once, walking away and out the door, leaving Sebastian alone with the food. It was quiet in the kitchen - an eerie, unsettling quiet, and Sebastian found himself tossing the food into their containers and washing up the used plates and silverware with an irrational sense of urgency.

Kurt's life was full of ghosts, and Sebastian wasn't particularly fond of ghosts.

He finished up in haste, leaving the kitchen as neat as he could while simultaneously trying to bolt straight for the bathroom. He met Kurt in the hallway, his arms crowded with thick, white towels, t-shirts and flannel sleep pants, as well as his white caddy of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. A curly white shower poof dangled from the edge.

Sebastian grinned at his boyfriend.

"Do you think your dad would lynch me if he knew we're taking a shower together?" Sebastian asked, putting his hands on Kurt's shoulders and following after him.

"No," Kurt said with a sad smile, "I…I think he'd be alright with it, you know, if we kept the pornographic moaning to a minimum."

Sebastian stripped quickly, carelessly tossing his clothes to the floor, and turned on the hot water, remembering the shower in his apartment and all the times his water would barely get past lukewarm. Sebastian got the water temperature where he wanted it, and then yanked open the curtain with a flourish, bowing at the waist and wiggling his eyebrows in an attempt to crack Kurt out of his sullen mood, but he had no luck. Kurt stepped in under the spray with Sebastian a step after, pulling the curtain closed behind them.

Sebastian knew by the way Kurt kept his head bowed and his arms secured around his torso that they wouldn't be doing anything explicit. Kurt stood under the water, letting it fall over his head and past his shoulders, eyes cast down to his feet. Sebastian came up beside him, trailing fingers down Kurt's shoulders to his elbows, creeping over wet skin to fold over his arms. Kurt completed the circle, stepping back so he could fit against his boyfriend, keeping his head bent, his forehead tilting toward the cold tile. Sebastian held him, cradling his naked body protectively in his arms, and even though there were a hundred things he could think of to say, he held his tongue and respected the quiet.

He bathed Kurt when Kurt made no attempt to move. Sebastian remembered this as well, taking care of him. Kurt thought he was a burden, but Sebastian saw things differently. He felt honored to be able to touch Kurt when Kurt wanted the whole world to disappear.

He took his time massaging his fingers through Kurt's hair and down his body, even though all he wanted was to wrap his boyfriend around him and let the day wind down.

Kurt seemed to come back from where he sent his mind adrift when Sebastian rinsed him off. They dressed and dried in silence; so much silence surrounded them and Sebastian hated it because he couldn't escape his thoughts otherwise.

Back in Kurt's room, Sebastian attacked the bed with gusto, diving onto the mattress and bunching the pillows beneath his head, prepared for the relaxing calm of a dreamless sleep.

Kurt stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes focused on Sebastian's face in an odd way, like he was seeing something that wasn't really there. Had it been anyone else staring it would have made Sebastian uncomfortable.

Kurt grabbed the hem of his shirt in both hands and pulled it over his head, swiftly, with purpose, without question as to what he was thinking or why. He kicked off his pants in much the same way, unapologetic, decisions made, no questions asked.

Sebastian didn't need Kurt to ask. He pulled off his own shirt and pants as well, completely naked by the time Kurt crawled across the bed and threw back the comforter. It didn't matter that the emotions of the day still hung heavy in the air. It didn't matter that so much of Kurt's agony still burned bright in his eyes. Sebastian was hard with want for his boyfriend.

Kurt didn't mince words. There was nothing he needed to say, and anything that he would have tried to make clear would have been washed away in a tidal wave of sobs. He found a condom and a bottle of lube waiting for him under Sebastian's pillow, a habit of Sebastian's since they seemed to find themselves in this position every time they climbed into bed. This was the way they were. This was how they communicated, expressed love, banished sorrow. This was how Sebastian made up for years of torment that Kurt had to endure. This was how Kurt learned to forget. Kurt rolled the condom down Sebastian's length in a determined, clinical way, spreading a dollop of lube over him and slipping over him quickly. Sebastian reached out for him, tried to stop him. He didn't want Kurt to hurt himself but he couldn't stop him. Kurt bit his lip, crying out softly in his throat, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Kurt," Sebastian whispered, catching the tears on his thumb. "Kurt, no…"

The words faded when Kurt moved, and Kurt's heat, his incredible tight heat silenced every objection Sebastian had. When Sebastian looked as though he might come to his senses again and stop Kurt, Kurt kissed him, crashing their mouths together and stealing every word.

Sebastian didn't stop him. He realized that there was more going on than plain old sex. Sebastian shifted down lower on the bed to give Kurt more room, and let Kurt have his way.

"Oh, Kurt," Sebastian whimpered, overwhelmed by Kurt's body sliding over him, slamming against. "Oh, Kurt…baby, I'm not going to last if you keep doing that." Sebastian raised his hands to grab Kurt's hips, but Kurt took hold of his wrists and pinned them over his head.

"Holy fu-." The words barely left Sebastian's mouth and Kurt was on him again, biting his lower lip, lapping at his mouth hungrily. Sebastian saw stars - whole constellations spinning out of control behind his eyelids with every kiss.

Sebastian was afraid that Kurt wouldn't let himself cum, that he would fuck him till he rubbed every inch of skin raw to have something new to feel. Sebastian didn't want to overpower him, especially not here, in the bedroom, in a place of safety where Kurt first learned to trust Sebastian after many years of abuse and suffering. He knew that Kurt was beyond caring for the moment about his own pain, so maybe Sebastian could make him hear if he appealed on the part of his own.

"Kurt," Sebastian said, hoping his voice would break through whatever walls Kurt had constructed. "Kurt, slow down…please."

Kurt grunted, moving faster, harder, and Sebastian threw his head back and squeezed his eyes closed.

"Kurt, baby, please. You're hurting me."

Sebastian heard Kurt gasp, felt his hands let up off his wrists. The reaction to those words was immediate, and Kurt began to recoil, a look of shame on his face that Sebastian hadn't expected. He grabbed Kurt back and held him close. Sebastian reached for the bottle of lube and squeezed out more, spreading it out over his cock. He held Kurt in his arms and moved up into him slowly.

"There," Sebastian cooed as he felt Kurt relax into his embrace, "that's better, isn't it?"

Kurt whimpered, but was otherwise silent, shifting the balance of power, giving Sebastian permission to take him instead. Sebastian had been close already. Another whimper, a sigh, any sign at all that Kurt was enjoying himself would push him over the edge, but Kurt kept his eyes closed tight, and his body more or less rigid.

"Open your eyes, Kurt," Sebastian said, running his fingertips over Kurt's skin anywhere he could reach. "Open your eyes and look at me."

It took a moment for Kurt to open his eyes, fluttering as if he was fighting against staying closed off and hidden and returning to the place where Sebastian lay beneath him, making love to him. Kurt blinked a few times, and Sebastian thought he might close his eyes again. If he did, Sebastian would let him. If he was in pain, Sebastian definitely didn't want to cause him any more. But Kurt opened his eyes and gazed down into Sebastian's face, and Sebastian smiled wide.

"There's my gorgeous boyfriend," Sebastian murmured, reaching up to run the pad of his thumb down Kurt's cheek. Sebastian wrapped his fingers around Kurt's cock, which wasn't even half-hard regardless of his relentless, pounding pace, and stroked gently. Kurt whined in the back of his throat, a strangled mewl, distressed and dejected.

"Come on, baby," Sebastian cooed, "help me out here. I don't want to cum without you."

Sebastian moved a little, moved till he knew he could find where Kurt needed him to touch, to brush against with his cock and make his toes curl. He found it and Kurt's head rolled back, his lips parted as he panted into the air. Sometimes Sebastian felt so helpless around Kurt; he knew that Kurt was fighting demons that Sebastian was blind to, but this, this he could do for him. Kurt's cock was hard and heavy in Sebastian's hand, and the beautiful, pale nymph his boyfriend was returned with a vengeance, grinding in Sebastian's lap and chanting a muted, "Yes, yes, yes," while Kurt clenched his teeth to keep from waking his dad.

Kurt came over Sebastian's fist without warning, with his head lulled forward and his ass stuttering hard against Sebastian's hips. He was wrecked and broken in good and bad ways, and everything that was Kurt melted boneless over Sebastian's body. That first touch of his skin – the soft, slightly sweaty plane of his chest making the lightest contact with Sebastian's – was enough to fuse every sensation together, and he came, biting his lip and burying his face into the crook of Kurt's neck.

Sebastian came down quickly, craning his head to catch sight of Kurt's eyes.

"Would you like to tell me what that was about?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt sat up and shook his head, his cheeks darkening, his eyes shifting left and right. Sebastian had unearthed a secret Kurt thought he had kept well hidden - that he didn't make love to Sebastian this time. He was using him. Not that Sebastian cared. Kurt could use him anytime.

Sebastian knew what needing a distraction was like, knew about using pleasure to erase pain.

"Kurt?" Sebastian stared into Kurt's face, into his eyes that seemed to stare elsewhere even when they were locked on his. "Kurt, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kurt said quietly, shoving aside whatever it was that he truly felt in favor of a beautiful lie, but even as he nodded, his face started to crumble and tears started to fall. There was nothing he could do to stop them. They were a force of nature all their own, over which Kurt had no control.

"Kurt." He ran his fingers through Kurt's sweaty hair and massaged his neck. "Kurt, tell me what's wrong."

Kurt sniffed, wiping a hand beneath his nose.

"I miss him, Sebastian," Kurt said with a cough. "I miss him so much."

"Hey." Sebastian caught Kurt when he fell, as if every bone had broken and every muscle torn to shreds, nothing left to keep him sitting tall. "It's okay, Kurt. It's okay to miss him."

"I…I should have been here," Kurt cried. "I should have come home, but I was so scared. So fucking scared. I'm such a coward."

"No!" Sebastian lifted Kurt up, held him straight and looked into eyes that fought to look away. "No, I won't let you say that. How dare you, Kurt."

Kurt's head snapped up. His eyes didn't quite hold the fire they usually did when something made him angry, but it was there and that was enough for Sebastian.

"What…"

"How dare you say that?" Sebastian interrupted. "How dare you call yourself a coward? You are the bravest person I know. You're my hero. You saved my life."

"That's just…just because I…couldn't live…without you…" Kurt choked.

"Stop it," Sebastian said, grabbing Kurt and squeezing him tight, almost unnecessarily so. "No, I won't have you talk like that. Ever. Do you understand me?"

Kurt didn't nod but Sebastian didn't need him to. He pulled Kurt down to the bed, not caring about condoms or messes or anything else petty or insignificant. He held Kurt until Kurt cried his last tears. He held Kurt even when Kurt tried to squirm away. He held him and kissed the back of his neck, whispering words of love, in English, in French, in softly whispered strains of music that Sebastian hummed against Kurt's skin until Kurt gave up every ounce of fight and drifted off to sleep.

Sebastian watched Kurt's body, his chest rising and falling, his eyes shifting behind his eyelids. Kurt finally relaxed and wove his arms through Sebastian's, smiling at some thought born and bred from the warmth of Sebastian's body.

After that, when he was sure that Kurt was as far removed from reality as he could find in sleep, Sebastian began to cry.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N:**_ Warning for anxiety and nightmares._

_"Sebas-Sebastian…"_

Sebastian heard his name, spoken in a muffled whine by his right ear, but he was so locked down by exhaustion that he almost brushed it off.

"What is it, gorgeous?" he mumbled through heavy lips.

_"Sebas…no…don…"_

Sebastian felt a kick to his shin and winced, but it wasn't painful enough to convince him to move. He was so completely and utterly drained of energy that nothing at this point could compel him to wake up.

_"No…don't…Chandler…don't…don't hurt him…"_

Nothing except that.

"Kurt?" Sebastian muttered, rousing himself slowly from sleep, the effort to open his eyes synonymous with pulling a lead weight from quicksand using only his pinkie fingertips. "Kurt? Gorgeous? It's alright. No one's hurting me. I'm here."

Kurt lashed out with his legs, as if kicking some invisible attacker away.

_"I'm…I'm going to kill you, Chandler…get…get away from him…I…I'm going to…kill…"_

Even before he could pry his eyes open, Sebastian reached out a hand and touched Kurt gently, giving Kurt an anchor to hold onto, a way to lead him back. He heard Kurt gasp at the feeling of fingers brushing his skin and his body went rigid.

"Kurt," Sebastian said, keeping his voice firm and even, almost commanding, "I'm right here beside you, baby. No one else is here. You beat him. You beat the bad guy. He can't hurt us anymore."

"Seb…Sebastian?" Kurt stuttered. Sebastian still couldn't see too well as he tried to blink away the darkness, but he felt Kurt's fingers reach out for him, touch his arm, and then wrap around his wrist, holding on tight as if at any moment someone would pull them apart. "Sebastian…Sebastian…" Kurt repeated over and over, choking over his name as tears began to fall.

"I'm here, darling," Sebastian said, pulling Kurt against him, cradling Kurt to his naked body, wrapping an arm around him. "I'm here. We're in Lima. No one can touch us ever again."

Kurt fell against Sebastian's chest and sobbed, tears rolling from his cheeks to Sebastian's skin, and Sebastian absorbed them all.

"No more nightmares," Sebastian whispered quietly. "No more nightmares for my gorgeous Kurt." These days it was more of a prayer than a promise. When they had first met, Sebastian had the power to banish Kurt's nightmares by simply holding him through the night, but not anymore. Not now that Kurt's nightmares had changed. Sebastian was a part of Kurt's darkest dreams now. Instead of Kurt being tortured and abused, it was Sebastian being threatened, Sebastian being hurt – Sebastian lingering on the brink of death with no way for Kurt to reach him.

Except in real life, Kurt _had_ gotten to Sebastian in time. He had been willing to sacrifice his life to rescue Sebastian.

Kurt had pulled the trigger, and killed the villain.

Kurt had saved the day.

But that didn't make the nightmares stop.

Because at heart Kurt wasn't a killer, and he didn't consider himself a hero. In his nightmares, there was that chance that he wouldn't be fast enough, that he wouldn't decide quick enough. That he would lose hold of the gun and Chandler would win.

Then, Sebastian would die.

Kurt never told Sebastian any of this, but Sebastian knew.

Sebastian knew because he had the same dreams.

Dreams where he didn't decipher Kurt's riddle, where he didn't break down the door, where he drove off and Chandler got away with kidnapping Kurt.

They'd be together if that had happened, and God knows what Chandler would be doing to Kurt.

Sebastian couldn't afford to think like that. It would drive him insane.

Sebastian tucked the comforter around Kurt's body and ran comforting fingers through his hair, humming quietly until he felt his boyfriend's breathing calm and heard his sobs quiet down. Sebastian combed his fingers through Kurt's hair until he was certain he had drifted back asleep, then did his best to follow, but a part of him stayed awake no matter how hard he tried.

The sun shone through the window early, long before Sebastian expected it, but he didn't push himself awake. There was no need. Kurt slept peacefully with his head resting over Sebastian's heart, and with nothing else urgent on the agenda for the morning, Sebastian lay beneath his boyfriend and let him sleep, giving himself permission to do the same. He wasn't that eager to face Burt and Carole yet. Yesterday had been a roller coaster ride for everyone, and Sebastian didn't know what to expect from the Hudson-Hummel clan. He only had his own family as a frame of reference, and whenever there was an emotional outburst at home, they would awkwardly avoid one another until the situation was conveniently forgotten. Once his father was able to ask them to pass the sugar at the breakfast table again, everything went back to normal in their world.

Kurt and his family didn't seem like the kind of people who would simply sweep a tragedy like this under the carpet, but who knew? With Kurt's dad's heart problems, maybe it was better to hide from conflict than to confront it.

Sebastian didn't know which he preferred.

He turned his head and looked at the clock by Kurt's bed.

_7:15_

_Well_, Sebastian thought, hugging Kurt against him, smiling when Kurt stirred with a tiny murmur and then fell back to sleep, _Kurt and_ _I still have a few more hours left to hide_.

* * *

><p>"Sebastian?"<p>

Sebastian shook his head, unwilling to acknowledge anything that would try to rob him of the bliss of his dreamless sleep.

"_No_," he muttered.

"Sebastian? Sweetheart?"

This time, the intrusion came with a slight shake to his shoulder. Sebastian made a noise, nothing that could be construed as English, and then he turned onto his side.

"Sebastian…honey… it's almost noon," Kurt sang, planting kisses on his boyfriend's neck. "It's time to get up."

"_Noitsnot_," Sebastian mumbled, the sentence sounding like one fuzzy word. Kurt laughed lightly and started sucking a mark onto Sebastian's shoulder.

Sebastian moaned.

"We have to get up…" Kurt kissed along his shoulder blades. "We have to have brea—lunch…" Kurt chuckled as he kissed down Sebastian's spine. Sebastian felt Kurt's delicate kisses shimmer over his skin like ripples on the surface of a pond, and he smiled. "We have to get ready to go to Westerville…"

Sebastian groaned. To a point, he was trying to forget about Westerville. Knowing they would be leaving to head there in a few hours made his whole body hurt, like an anvil crushing his chest, trying to force him to stay still.

Stay in Lima with Kurt, where life was easy and the only thing weighing him down were memories of Kurt's past.

What would take place in Westerville tonight could affect his entire future.

Sebastian wanted to see his brother – who had been his rock, the unexpected friend he couldn't have made it through the last few months without, the man who was more than responsible for giving Sebastian the ability to help Kurt when Kurt needed him – his sister-in-law, and his adorable nephew. Then there was his mother – God, he missed her so much.

It was his dad that he could do without. If he never laid eyes on that man again, Sebastian would die happy, but his dad was the crux of all of this, and like it or not Sebastian would have to confront the man sooner or later.

He _was_ having second thoughts about dragging Kurt into this. Kurt had so much of his own pain to deal with; he didn't deserve the added weight of Sebastian's fucked up family to contend with, but Sebastian knew better than to make that decision for him.

If Kurt could stand up to a psychotic man who wanted to kill his boyfriend and kidnap him, Sebastian knew he could probably stomach one uncomfortable dinner with his bigoted dad…even if he shouldn't have to.

Besides, on a more selfish note, Sebastian needed Kurt there. He needed Kurt's strength, because Kurt definitely had more of it than Sebastian did.

"What can I do to help you, baby?" Kurt whispered, his voice filled with sweet promises and an undercurrent of worry. "What do you want me to do?"

Sebastian rolled onto his side to face Kurt, wrapping his arms around him, disappointed to find that Kurt had already thrown on a pair of pajamas – more than likely to use the restroom and avoid nakedly racing down the hallway. At least he could have had the courtesy to disrobe again before attempting to wake Sebastian up.

Kurt being naked would make the process go a whole lot smoother.

"Turn back the clock a few hours," Sebastian whispered, kissing the corner of Kurt's mouth. "Make love to me again."

Kurt bit his lip and averted his eyes, his cheeks darkening with shame. This blush wasn't the shade of red that Sebastian longed to see in Kurt's cheeks. He much preferred that pretty pink flush Kurt got when Sebastian whispered dirty things into his ear, things he wanted to do to him, or that sexy crimson flush Kurt got all over his body when Sebastian went down on him, when he took Kurt's cock in his mouth or when he opened Kurt up with his tongue.

This shade was a dull, brick red. It was full of embarrassment and regret.

"That wasn't…I didn't…" Kurt muttered, bowing his head, but Sebastian didn't let him hide. He kissed him over and over, holding Kurt against his naked body.

"Kurt," Sebastian said, kissing him again until he was breathless, "it always is."

Kurt wouldn't agree or disagree. He kept his eyes focused on Sebastian's mouth - not in that way that begged Sebastian to kiss him, but Sebastian did anyway.

"How did you sleep, gorgeous? Did you have any interesting dreams?" Sebastian asked, hoping to get Kurt to talk about his nightmares. They had briefly discussed the idea of Kurt going to counseling about his recurring bad dreams. Sebastian offered to go with him. He felt he could probably benefit as well from a good old-fashioned head-shrinking, but Kurt wasn't ready yet to open up to another person about everything that had happened. To Kurt, reliving the experience in his dreams was awful, but not as awful as it would be to constantly have to repeat it, pick it apart, and analyze it, especially with a stranger present.

For the time being, Kurt wanted to battle his demons in private.

"I…no, not really," Kurt lied. Sebastian shook his head and kissed him again. Sebastian could tell by Kurt's kiss that he knew he wasn't fooling Sebastian, but Sebastian was in no position to judge.

"Well, I had some _incredible_ dreams," Sebastian said with elaborate emphasis on the word _incredible_.

"Really?" Kurt asked with an anxious chuckle.

"No," Sebastian admitted, smacking Kurt on the ass as punishment for his lie by omission, "but just now I was thinking how amazing it would be to have you ride me." He rolled onto his back with Kurt straddling his hips, lifting up and brushing his erection over the crack of Kurt's ass. "We could stay here all afternoon, and I could make you cum over, and over, and over…"

Sebastian tried his best to persuade him, and from where Sebastian lay looking up at Kurt - his blue eyes rolling up, his eyelids fluttering shut, his head lulling back on his neck, the bulge in the front of his sleep pants growing with every buck of Sebastian's hips – it seemed like it was working.

Until the knock on the door, so hard it rattled the poor thing in its frame and made the room echo with its urgent pounding.

"Boys!" Burt's gruff voice rumbled like the roar of an impatient bull. "I'm firing up the grill for _lunch_ so get your asses moving, alright?"

The emphasis on the word _lunch_ had Sebastian smirking up at Kurt. Burt definitely thought some indiscretion had been taking place in their room.

Outside the door, standing beside her husband, Carole sputtered, and then laughed so loudly she sounded like she was standing in the room with them, falling over herself.

"They probably _are_ getting their asses moving," she sniggered. Kurt could tell by her unsuccessfully concealed voice that she was trying to talk so that only his father could hear. "That's why they're still in bed. Lucky sons of…"

"Oh, Lord," Burt sighed, turning from the door and hobbling away. "Dammit, Carole! I would rather not think about my son…"

Burt's grumbling and Carole's hyena-like cackling faded into the distance as they continued on down the stairs. Kurt stared down at Sebastian with complete and utter mortification draining the color from his cheeks.

At least that brick red flush of shame was gone.

"So, that effectively killed my boner," Sebastian said with a twinge of resentment, running his hands over Kurt's thighs, kneading at the muscles. Kurt moved a bit to get up then stopped, raising an eyebrow at his boyfriend.

"No, it didn't," Kurt said. "You're still hard."

"Well, it's doesn't help us any if they're waiting downstairs for us, now does it?" Sebastian pouted, wiggling his hips, trying to grasp the last remnants of any fading friction he could get against Kurt's ass before they would have to abandon the bed and join the couple cooking outside.

"It always takes him about thirty minutes to get the coals going," Kurt said, borrowing one of Sebastian's slow burning grins and making it his own long enough to get his point across.

Sebastian caught on to Kurt's grin and smiled.

"Are you sure?" Sebastian asked, though he had already started tugging Kurt's shirt over his head. Kurt nodded, falling over Sebastian's body and lifting his hips, giving himself enough room to kick off his pants.

"Positive," Kurt replied.

"Thirty minutes, you say?" Sebastian asked, flipping Kurt beneath his body, looking at the flawless skin of Kurt's chest and licking his lips. "Gorgeous, that's more than enough time."

* * *

><p>An hour later, Kurt and Sebastian finally made an appearance in the backyard. They were met by one amused stare and one slightly uncomfortable side-glance.<p>

"How's it going, boys?" Carole asked, winking at Sebastian in particular as they approached the red-washed picnic table.

"We're good," Kurt answered, clinging to Sebastian's arm.

"Sorry if we're late for lunch," Sebastian said, feeling like he owed Burt and Carole an apology. He and Kurt would have been done with their last minute sex-capade in the allotted thirty minutes if Sebastian hadn't convinced Kurt to go for round two.

"Uh, Sebastian," Burt said, discomfort forcing him to avoid looking at Sebastian while he talked, "we didn't know how you liked your meat…oh crap…"

Burt fumbled his tongs when the words left his mouth. Carole spit out her mouthful of beer, laughing obscenely.

"I bet Kurt knows!" Carole rushed out, unable to help herself. Besides, she felt it would have been a sin to overlook such an obvious pun, even at her stepson's expense. Carole snickered, covering her mouth with her napkin.

"So, uh…" Burt muttered, flustered, trying to rescue the conversation and steer it back toward the subject of lunch and not innuendos about his son's sex life, "I made a lot of burgers, and steaks, a few wieners…ah, shit…"

Burt gave up when his wife spat out another mouthful of beer. Somewhere behind Sebastian, the ground had opened up and swallowed Kurt whole as he was nowhere to be seen.

"A burger would be great, thank you," Sebastian said, his cheeks red from trying to hold back a laugh along with about a dozen inappropriate comments. He didn't need to say a word, though. Carole was doing the job well enough for both of them.

Burt looked grateful when he put a burger on a plate and handed it to Sebastian.

"Aren't you going to offer to toast his buns?" Carole barely got out. She roared again and this time Sebastian couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing, hurrying over to the picnic table to keep from losing his lunch to the grass as he doubled over.

Kurt reappeared like magic once the bawdy jokes stopped, and when everyone was served, lunch officially began. Sebastian bit into his burger, looking from face to face at the table, smiling when Kurt, sitting beside him, leaned over to rest his head on his shoulder.

Kurt and Sebastian listened to Carole talk about their plans for a second honeymoon (they had been waiting until they found out that Kurt was okay before they even entertained the thought of leaving, afraid that Kurt would one day show up at their door and they wouldn't be there to greet him). Burt talked about his plans to cut down on his time at the shop and better embrace the idea of retirement.

Carole agreed with that idea wholeheartedly, adding that Burt was more than past due.

Life went on, and Sebastian relaxed into it.

This was the kind of family the Hudson-Hummels were. There were a few lasting scars from yesterday's ordeal, evident in the way Carole would unconsciously reach across the table for Kurt's hand and squeeze it, or the way Burt would pause to stare at his son with a mixture of pain and pride in his eyes. But there was no need to drudge the specifics back up and lay all their wounds bare, no need to let it hover over them like a dark cloud when there were so many other things to enjoy and be thankful for.

After lunch, the group moved back inside and went about their business. Burt went out to the garage and got caught up in his woodwork, this time with the addition of a college game playing on the small color TV he kept out there for just such an occasion. Carole had a few errands she had to run, and Kurt dragged Sebastian back up to his room to pick out an appropriate outfit for dinner.

"At it again, guys?" Carole asked as she watched Kurt lead Sebastian up the stairs.

"Carole, were you always this lewd, or am I only noticing it now?" Kurt asked his stepmom while she slipped into her jacket and grabbed her keys.

"Oh, sweetie," Carole said, adjusting her collar, "we're both a little too old for me to be caring about filters anymore." Carole winked at Kurt as she opened the door. "Now, you two run upstairs and have fun."

"We're picking out clothes for dinner tonight," Kurt called after her, feeling the need to let her know that they really weren't headed upstairs for late afternoon nooky.

"Sure you are," she said through the crack in the closing door, pulling it shut to keep Kurt from having the last word.

"Wh-Carole!" Kurt yelled, but Carole was already gone. Kurt stood on the staircase, mouth agape, appalled that Carole would leave without accepting his explanation while Sebastian laughed, his eyes squinting shut, tears running down his face. Kurt caught him and smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Sebastian!"

"I like her," Sebastian coughed out, drying his wet eyes on the hem of his shirt.

"Ugh!" Kurt exclaimed, storming up the stairs and leaving his boyfriend behind to choke on his laughter.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Carole wasn't entirely off the mark.<p>

To save time, Kurt and Sebastian decided to shower together – not that they wouldn't have even if they had more time than they knew what to do with – and while they were there, Sebastian thought it was the perfect opportunity for an impromptu blowjob. Kurt really should have seen it coming. Shower sex had become as much a part of their washing regimen as Kurt's seaweed facial scrub, but this time was different. It wasn't as much for Kurt's enjoyment that Sebastian dropped to his knees and took Kurt's cock in his mouth as it was for Sebastian to prepare for whatever was going to try and drive a wedge between them.

Sebastian knew his father definitely would try. Sebastian didn't know how, and that was part of what unnerved him. His father could call him a loser. He could call Sebastian a mistake. He would probably even go so far as to call Sebastian a worthless whore.

Would any of this deter Kurt? He didn't honestly think so, but he didn't like taking chances.

Sebastian didn't care about his father or the estate. He didn't care about any of it. He didn't want to risk losing Kurt over it.

His father wasn't worth losing the best thing that had ever happened to him.

He didn't have to think about that for the moment - not with Kurt bucking and mewling above him as he sucked Kurt's length down his throat. Kurt clawed at the tile wall, his lips clamped shut as he tried hard to stay quiet. Sebastian defied Kurt's need for silence. He was more relentless with Kurt than he had ever been, and Kurt could barely get enough.

"Yes…" Kurt moaned. "Yes, yes, yes…"

Sebastian needed this. He needed to please Kurt. He needed Kurt in his life like he needed air to breathe. He wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist to hold him still and Kurt came down his throat.

"You're going to…exhaust me out…before we even get…to Westerville," Kurt panted, smiling into the steam as Sebastian kissed his way up his wet body.

"We can't have that," Sebastian said, but not too convincingly, covering his insecurities by kissing Kurt's neck. He laced their fingers together, holding their hands palm to palm, praying for time to stop long enough for him to have his fill of his beautiful boyfriend.

There would never be enough time for that.

* * *

><p>Kurt had already chosen a sleek pair of grey pants (a second pair of five that Sebastian had bought him since Sebastian seemed to like Kurt in grey) and a plum colored dress shirt, with a darker grey belt to set them off. Sebastian's suit had been ruined by the rain the day before, and with no chance to send it to the dry cleaners, he had to pick out something else suitable to wear. He could hardly care. The suit wasn't a necessity, just another arbitrary rule set up by his father. He would rather have his suit ruined in the rain visiting Kurt's stepbrother's grave then wasted at a stuffy old dinner. He chose a pair of plain black slacks and a matching belt, and Kurt picked out a deep green Burberry dress shirt for him to wear – the same shade as Sebastian's eyes. He supplemented his look with a tie a shade darker than the shirt – a subtle difference, but Kurt appreciated the touch.<p>

As they dressed, Richard blew up Sebastian's phone with anxiety-fueled text messages, and that ratcheted up Sebastian's edginess another twelve notches. His thoughts wandered off numerous times, sometimes in mid-sentence while talking to Kurt, and by the time he had his last button buttoned and his stray hairs sprayed into place, he was skittish, pacing, pushing Kurt to finish even though they had more than enough time.

Kurt held his tongue for Sebastian's sake, but as soon as this was all over with he was really going to let his boyfriend have it.

They succeeded in getting in Sebastian's Porsche and on the road ahead of schedule, but apparently it was at the same time everyone else in Ohio decided to drive on the 33E, and traffic was touch and go all the way from Marysville on.

Sebastian was wound tight - a ball of nervous energy sitting behind the wheel of a powerful sports car. Kurt saw this as a potentially volatile situation. Kurt could feel the tension hanging heavy in the air. Sebastian thrummed his fingers endlessly on the steering wheel, tapping out an urgent rhythm with his thumbs and then carrying it through with his fingers. He turned on the radio, changed every song after the first four seconds, and then after a grand total of seven songs, he shut the radio off entirely. He glared at the other drivers, as if they were making it their personal mission to make them late. He grumbled beneath his breath, checking the time on the clock incessantly, and then cursing when the numbers didn't change.

Kurt thanked whatever lucky star he lived under that at least they weren't speeding this time.

Kurt watched Sebastian, waiting patiently for a well-timed breath between curses and a convenient break in the traffic before he said anything.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kurt asked.

Sebastian tightened his jaw and chewed on the inside of his cheek as he considered Kurt's question.

"Would I be the biggest asshole boyfriend in the world if I said no?" Sebastian asked, his eyes still on the road backed up with cars ahead of them. "Or, maybe not yet?"

Kurt smiled.

"No," he said. "Not at all.

"Thank you," Sebastian answered, the knotted muscles in his neck not giving in an inch.

Kurt paused, watching Sebastian down-shift before asking his next question.

"Is there something _else_ on your mind that you want to talk about?" Kurt asked. "Something not directly family related?"

Sebastian sighed, trying his best to unwind.

"Are you cool with spending a couple of days in Westerville?" Sebastian asked, though Kurt could tell that wasn't the question on his mind. "I mean, it's going to be kind of dull, and my dad's an ass."

"So, that's where you get that charming personality trait from," Kurt teased. Sebastian's mouth tugged up at the corners, trying to give Kurt the smile that he was hoping to wheedle out of him, but he couldn't.

"I hope not," Sebastian said. "I don't want to be anything like him. But you're probably right. I take after my dad and Richard takes after my mom. That's the way it's always been."

"Oh, Seb," Kurt said, reaching over a hand and resting it on Sebastian's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"Where did that come from?" Sebastian asked out of curiosity and a need to change the subject.

"What?" Kurt asked, taken back by the sudden change in Sebastian's serious tone. "Where did what come from?"

"The nickname," Sebastian said, side-eying Kurt slyly. "You always made it a point to call me by my full name, and now…"

"I'm sorry," Kurt said, sounding like he had been caught doing something naughty. "I was afraid you might not like it."

"On the contrary…" Sebastian grabbed Kurt's hand off his shoulder, brought it up to his mouth, and kissed his knuckles before returning the hand back to the shoulder it was on, "I think it's super hot. I'm just curious as to why."

"I don't know," Kurt said, rolling his eyes and blushing. "I love your name – your full name – but I heard you call Justice _Just _and he called you_ Bastian, _and it sounded so fratty and…" Kurt bit his lip, his eyes taking on a far away, dreamy quality that made Sebastian chuckle.

"You liked that, huh?" Sebastian asked.

"Oh, yeah," Kurt answered quickly. "And I guess I wanted to get in on that, but you can't shorten _my_ name really. Not unless you start calling me _K_, and I really don't want that."

"No," Sebastian agreed, "I couldn't do that."

Kurt nodded and looked down at his lap while he slowly massaged Sebastian's shoulders.

"So, you don't mind?" he asked, raising his eyes slightly to peek at Sebastian through long lashes. Traffic rolled to a halt again, giving Sebastian the opportunity to take his eyes off the road and turn his face to meet Kurt's shy gaze.

"I _love_ it," he says, his eyes burning with a sudden flicker of lust-filled heat, "especially when you said it during sex."

"Really?" Kurt lifted his head more, licking his lips at the memory of being pounded into from behind and letting that nickname slip.

"Really," Sebastian said. "Absolutely."

* * *

><p>For an interminable stretch of time they crawled along the highway. Kurt kept his back to the window, trying not to lock eyes with the passengers of the other cars around them who stared at Sebastian's magnificent Porsche and couldn't seem to stop. Kurt suddenly understood how fish must feel being gawked at in their tanks at the pet store. At one point, the cars stopped entirely, and Sebastian cut the engine. Unfortunately, they ended up stuck beside a red convertible full of giggling college-aged girls who winked at Sebastian and called out to them, blowing them kisses through the glass, vying for their attention.<p>

Sebastian laughed, but he didn't otherwise give the girls the time of day. Kurt didn't find it quite as amusing. He had an ugly possessive streak that he didn't want to show. He turned up his nose at their antics, but he couldn't even get the satisfaction of crossing his arms over his chest, not wanting to wrinkle his shirt.

"You know," Sebastian said, leaning over the gear shift and leering suggestively at Kurt, "we could totally just have sex right now. Give these people a _real_ show."

Kurt scowled at his boyfriend in disgust.

"You know, I know you're in a bad place right now, and I'd do anything for you, Seb," Kurt said, "but I won't do that."

Sebastian chuckled at Kurt's adorably stern face and Kurt delighted in having his playfully inappropriate boyfriend back.

He hoped his mood change lasted longer than the car ride.

Kurt changed the subject to something he thought would be more light-hearted and carefree – their impending trip around the world. Kurt still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that they were going. He had been planning a journey like this since as long as he could remember. Didn't everybody, really? He knew Sebastian had the means to make it happen, and he knew they had discussed it over and over, but it still didn't seem like more than a daydream. The realist in him didn't let himself get too excited, in case the rug got pulled out from under him. That didn't mean he couldn't lose himself to the planning and the excitement every once in a while.

Besides, right now Sebastian needed the diversion.

Unlike a lot of their conversations, Sebastian took the lead on this one, going over all the places he planned to take Kurt – to France (of course), Italy, Spain…Sebastian promised that all of Europe would be their playground. He talked about restaurants he wanted to take Kurt to, sights he wanted Kurt to see, and in traditional Sebastian Smythe style, all the places he wanted them to make love. He talked in such exuberant detail about open meadows he'd driven past and rock faces he'd climbed that Kurt – who was relatively conservative with regard to where he would agree to have sex – got caught up in Sebastian's excitement. He could see the appeal of being naked out in the open, and the taboo factor of possibly being caught, though the places Sebastian described sounded off-the-beaten-path, which added to the appeal.

Kurt liked walking on the wild side every now and then – as long as the trip was carefully planned, every safety precaution was taken, and a plan B was in effect in case anything went wrong.

Sebastian's conversation started dying down when they exited the highway and drove along the winding residential streets that gradually climbed uphill, passing progressively more and more exclusive neighborhoods. Kurt thought that Sebastian had gone silent to return to his intense mental preparation, but a smile spread across his face as he pointed out the window to a large house cresting the hill to their right. Kurt knew then that Sebastian had stopped talking because he didn't want to miss Kurt's first reaction at seeing his family estate.

And Kurt didn't disappoint.

His eyes popped opened wide. His jaw dropped. He threw his hands up to his face to cover his gaping mouth.

"Oh my God!" Kurt said with a laugh of disbelief. "That can't be it? That's enormous!"

"I never get tired of hearing you say that," Sebastian joked, pulling up the hill alongside a black wrought iron fence, slowing to a stop when they reached the closed gate. He rolled down the window and typed four numbers into a keypad. Nothing happened, and Sebastian began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel again. Kurt wondered if Sebastian's dad would actually be vindictive enough to change the lock on the gate so that Sebastian couldn't return to his family home.

From what Sebastian had told Kurt, the answer to that was a big yes.

But the gate made a metallic grinding noise and it lurched, rolling open on the rail beneath it.

Sebastian blew out a relieved breath, which Kurt politely ignored.

Sebastian's dad probably _had_ removed Sebastian's personal access code on the gate lock, and Sebastian's brother obviously input it back for him.

They pulled up the long driveway, and as the iron fence dropped away revealing the whole expanse of the property, Kurt gasped. The Smythe Family estate looked exactly the way Kurt had pictured it in his mind – a monstrous house, bigger than any family of four people would ever realistically need to inhabit, surrounded on all sides by acres and acres of grass and flowers, huge lawns the size of whole parks, dotted with trees, and off in the far distance, a pond with ducks and swans swimming over its surface. It reminded Kurt of the estates Jane Austen wrote about in her books, where the rich and brooding whiled away their time, and the poor heroine could only dream of living, glimpsing their utopia through balls and dinner parties – touching, but never having.

"What do you think, gorgeous?" Sebastian asked his tongue-tied boyfriend.

"I think there shall be a ball tonight at Netherfield," Kurt said, putting a hand to his chest and affecting his best haughty English accent.

"Ah, Jane Austen." Sebastian grinned. "I knew you liked romance novels."

"I never said I didn't," Kurt said, "but I'm very selective with my love stories – _Pride_ _and_ _Prejudice_, _The_ _Notebook_, _Jane_ _Eyre_…"

"So, you like a healthy dose of angst with your romance?" Sebastian teased.

"Those are some of the best kinds," Kurt said, turning away from the impressive view to look Sebastian in the face. "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

Sebastian scoffed.

"Yeah?" he asked, the sarcasm in his voice thick. "Well, pardon me, but I like easy. I'm done with hard."

Sebastian turned to look at Kurt, who stared back at him with a blank expression but sorrow-filled eyes. It struck Sebastian's heart like a dagger with the memory of everything he and Kurt had been through to get to this point, and he bit his own tongue hard for letting that comment slip by him uncensored. Sebastian pulled up to the gravel driveway at the front of the house and parked beside a black BMW. He cut the engine and turned in his seat, placing both hands on Kurt's cheeks, running his thumbs over Kurt's cheekbones.

"Except when it comes to you," Sebastian said. "Easy, hard, and everything in between. Understand?"

Kurt nodded.

"Yeah," he said, hoping he didn't look as green as he felt. "Don't mind me. I'm just nervous." Kurt gulped loudly, his eyes turning to glance at the intimidating house before him.

"Please, don't be nervous," Sebastian said, leaning forward and touching their foreheads together, gathering the strength he needed to get out of the car.

"Because everything's going to be alright?" Kurt asked, rolling his eyes at the trite comment.

"Oh, no," Sebastian laughed. "This is going to suck big time. But if _you're_ nervous, _I'm_ going to be nervous, and I want us to get out of this thing without anyone getting shot or arrested."

Sebastian opened his door to climb out of the car.

"Been there," Kurt said, opening his own door, "done that."

"Sebastian! Kurt!" a voice – equal parts frustration and equal parts relief - called from the doorway of the house. Kurt turned to face the man rushing out toward them.

Sebastian didn't have to turn his head to know who it was.

"Hey, Ricky!" Sebastian called over his shoulder. "Long time, no see."

"You're…you're not wearing a suit," Richard commented, coming to an abrupt stop to stare up and down his brother's body.

"How very perceptive of you," Sebastian said, his signature sarcasm softer around the edges than usual.

Kurt took a better look at the man in the navy blue suit blocking their way. He was shorter than Sebastian, surprisingly so, and had a much stockier build. Kurt had expected Sebastian and Richard to be mirror images of each other, like a lot of other siblings he knew. It amazed Kurt how dissimilar they actually looked.

Sebastian's chocolate colored hair was naturally wavy, and he kept it stylishly swept up in the front. Richard's raven colored hair was straight, and much more conservatively cut.

Sebastian's eyes were green while Richard's eyes were a light brown.

Sebastian's skin was tan, but Richard's skin was pale.

Sebastian looked like…well, like a fashion model, in Kurt's _un_biased opinion (when he could bring himself to be unbiased). Richard, on the other hand, looked like an accountant.

If Kurt hadn't known they were brothers, he would have never guessed that they were even related.

Kurt knew that the two brothers had lived vastly different lives, and that shaped who they were. He figured that they each took after one parent, but there literally seemed to be no visual genetic connection between them.

"Kurt," Sebastian said, taking Kurt by the arm and pulling his focus, "this is my brother, Richard. Richard, this is my boyfriend, Kurt."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Richard said, taking Kurt's hand and shaking it, a tenuous smile on his tense lips. "Though, I _had_ hoped to meet you over an hour ago…_Sebastian_…"

"I'm sorry, Ricky," Sebastian said, "but we got caught behind an accident on our way through Bellefontaine."

"Yeah, right," Richard snapped. "I know what _that_ means coming from you, Sebastian."

Sebastian jerked back, his lips set in a thin line.

Kurt didn't like the humiliation he could see in Sebastian's green eyes, but he felt sorry for poor Richard. Even in his crisp, put together suit, he was the picture of a person who had tried to keep his sanity together for way too long and was finally cracking under the pressure.

Sebastian smirked, shaking his head, and pulled his iPhone out of his pocket. He brought up a browser, and then a page on Google maps. He turned the screen toward his brother, showing him the numerous traffic alerts that riddled the image of 33E. Richard scanned the information on the screen and looked immediately apologetic.

"I'm sorry, bro…Kurt," Richard said, "I didn't mean to imply…"

"Yes, you did," Sebastian said, pocketing his phone and effectively putting his little brother in his place.

"I know I did, and I'm sorry," Richard repeated to his brother. Then he turned to Kurt. "I'm truly sorry."

"I know," Kurt said with sympathy, not sure what else to say to calm this distressed man.

Richard ran a hand through his hair before he continued.

"It's just that...I wanted more of a chance to warn you guys." Richard tilted his head up to the sky and took a breath in. "I told him over and over, I swear…but Dad kind of has the wrong impression as to why you're here, Sebastian."

Sebastian's cocky grin darkened.

"Why _does_ he think I'm here?" he asked in a voice low and flat as Sebastian attempted to remain calm. Kurt saw in Sebastian's eyes that he was thinking of a hundred different meanings behind Richard's words, none of them good.

"He thinks you're here to beg for his forgiveness," Richard said, his eyes simmering with deep guilt as he looked back and forth between Sebastian and Kurt, "and to tell him that you've changed your ways." He brought his hands up in a gesture of frustration, as if whatever else he had to tell them overwhelmed him so much it had taken control of his body. He tried to find a delicate way to impart the next bit of news, but failed. He sighed heavily, dropping his hands to his sides, and gave up. "When I told him you brought a date…he assumed you brought a woman with you."


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N:** _Warnings for anxiety, angst, a closet hand job, some homophobic comments, and a Kurt recollecting about his time with Dave (nothing specific)._

"What!?" Sebastian hissed, shooting a glance past Richard, preparing to blow by him, storm into the house, and strangle his father with his bare hands. "Where the fuck did he get _that_ idea?" Sebastian glared at Richard, who looked equally disgusted and threw his hands back up, this time in a gesture of defense.

"Don't look at _me_," Richard said, meeting his brother glare for glare. "I told him Kurt was coming with you..."

"And you made it clear that Kurt is my…"

"Yes, Sebastian," Richard said, inching toward the end of his rope. "I told him Kurt was your boyfriend. I told him you guys have been dating for months, that you've been living together, but he won't listen." Richard put a palm to his forehead, slapping lightly, trying to dislodge the frustration sticking in his skull. "Dad's an old egomaniac, and he hears only what he wants to hear. You know that."

Sebastian was tense, a single taut muscle ready to snap like a rubber-band and sting anything within reach, but he knew this wasn't Richard's fault, that his anger was about to be sorely misplaced if he didn't keep it in check.

"Yeah, I know that," Sebastian conceded. "I know." Sebastian and Richard simultaneously ran a hand through their hair in gestures so similar that Kurt finally saw it – the thread that connected them. They might not look alike, but they were _brothers_, fighting the same battle, united against the same enemy, and depending on their chosen definition of victory, it wasn't necessarily a battle they would win. Watching the tired exasperation on both men's faces, knowing only a minimum of what it entailed, made Kurt grateful for the thousandth time for the family that he had, for the father that raised him – one who would never disown him, never deny him, never put him in this position.

Kurt couldn't conceive of his dad doing anything close to this to him. Hell, he couldn't see his dad putting _Finn_ in this situation.

Both Sebastian and Richard came to a mutual standstill, and the three men stood in the driveway outside the house, no one in any hurry to get the evening started. Kurt didn't even check his watch; he didn't want to make any move that insinuated they should venture inside. Kurt knew this feeling – this want to simply stay still and hope that the worst would pass him by without him getting caught in its path. It's the same way he felt every night when Dave came home, even on the good days. He would stand in the kitchen making dinner with the carving knife in his hands, knowing that it would be useless as a weapon because he would never use it, praying that Dave didn't come in to check on him. According to Dave, Kurt never did anything right. Dinner wasn't what Dave wanted, even if he had chosen it that morning. The wine was white when Dave wanted red. Kurt used the wrong plates and bowls for serving. The counters weren't spotless to Dave's eyes, even if Kurt had spent hours scrubbing them. Kurt's clothes were always wrong. He picked apart everything until there was nothing left, then he'd drag Kurt to their bedroom and pick him apart some more.

It was Kurt's private torment. It had erased Kurt completely, caused him to drop off the radar for a few years, but that time had zipped by in barely a blink compared to what the Smythe boys must have lived through. Their imprisonment was every day, starting from birth, ingrained into every second of their lives. Even now, they _still_ suffered it. This dinner they were avoiding was a direct result. These two sons – now men – maybe didn't stand in fear of their father anymore, but they despised him nonetheless.

Sebastian's scars might not be as clearly defined and visible as Kurt's, but he did carry them.

Kurt watched Sebastian stand immobile and wondered if he was considering climbing back in his Porsche and driving back to Lima – to Kurt's dad and Carol and the promise of another uncomfortable but otherwise easygoing barbecue lunch – when a voice in the distance, coming from the gardens and not the house, broke the men from their paralysis.

"Oh my God!" it sang through the warm evening air. "Is that Kurt?"

It was evident that both Sebastian and Richard knew who the voice belonged to, though Richard's smile at her approach was much wider than his brother's.

"That would be my wife," Richard said, wasting few words on an introduction, knowing that she would handle that herself. "By the way, she happens to be your biggest fan."

Before Kurt could laugh at that, the petite woman with the bright green eyes and the hip length auburn hair pushed past her husband and brother-in-law and threw herself into Kurt's arms.

"I've wanted to meet you forever! I've heard so much about you!" she said, holding Kurt tight, not discouraged when he didn't put his arms immediately around her. "You're my hero! I feel like I should ask you for your autograph."

"Uh, thank you?" he said, returning her hug.

With a little giggle, she pulled back to get a better view of Kurt's face.

"And so handsome," she cooed. "Uh! Sebastian is _such_ a lucky man! A lucky, lucky man!"

"What exactly did I do?" Kurt chuckled.

"You saved Sebastian," Richard added with a roll of his eyes when his wife started rocking Kurt back and forth. "It's no secret that Tabby fell in love with Sebastian _long_ before she fell in love with me."

Kurt's eyes darted to Sebastian, whose face colored at his brother's remark, and Kurt saw that there might be a hair's worth of validity to it.

"That's not true, is it?" Kurt asked, his question going straight into the woman's hair when the wind shifted and blew the strands into his face.

She looked at him with a covert smile and a wink.

"Not by much," she confessed. She relinquished Kurt but kept an arm tucked into his and stood close, resting her head on his shoulder. She reminded Kurt of a cat, the way she snuggled up next to him and hummed with happiness, in which case _Tabby_ was an appropriate nickname.

"So I see you've met Tabitha," Sebastian said, gesturing to his sister-in-law. "Tabitha Andrea Reynolds."

"Reynolds?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah," Richard said. "She decided not to change her name."

"Smart girl," Sebastian commented.

"We discussed it," Tabitha explained, not removing her head from Kurt's shoulder, "but in the end we felt it important to keep our business interests separate from our personal lives. We still live in a patriarchal society. The minute I take Ricky's name, the shareholders start deferring to him, and I can't have that. Besides, it's kind of an antiquated tradition in this day and age, don't you think?"

"I agree," Kurt said in a neutral tone. He'd always been able to see both sides of this argument, and in Tabitha's situation, Kurt definitely agreed with her decision. "But I've also always appreciated the romance of it – symbolically becoming a part of the person you love and signifying it to the whole world in an intimate yet public way." Kurt shrugged with his unoccupied shoulder. "Antiquated, yes, but I can see myself taking my husband's name someday."

"Or maybe your husband can take _your_ name?" Sebastian asked, smirking but softly, drawing all eyes to him though he didn't care as long as Kurt heard.

"Possibly," Kurt said, returning Sebastian's smirk. "I don't see why not."

An odd tension curled around them, a potential marriage not a subject that anyone was prepared to discuss.

"So, where is the little bruiser?" Richard asked, looping an arm into his wife's free arm and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Monsa took Toby to bed," she said. "I thought it best considering how serious everything was going to get when _he_ got here." She looked at Sebastian with a teasing smile, and despite himself, Sebastian grinned.

"Monsa," Kurt repeated, "is that your son's nanny?"

"Not exactly," Tabitha said. "She's actually been my friend since birth. Her mom and my mom were besties back in the day."

"When Tabby was pregnant, she became really sick," Richard said, "and I was kind of useless, shall we say…"

"Monsa came here to help me," Tabitha picked up where Richard left off, "and she's stayed with us ever since."

"That must be nice," Kurt smiled, "having your best friend here to help you." It made Kurt think of the life he had planned on living in New York City as a famous designer or performer, with Blaine by his side, and his best friend from high school, Rachel, as their surrogate, carrying their child. It was a beautiful dream, a fairy tale.

Sometimes it hurt knowing that fairy tale wouldn't come true.

But he was living a new story – a better one - with a new future to plan and look forward to…

…especially since he just found out that his prince might want to marry him one day.

"I don't know what I'd do without her," Tabitha said.

Kurt envied Tabitha. She seemed like such a free spirit; she had such a core strength of character. And she and Richard had the kind of ongoing love affair that went beyond marriage. They even finished each other's stories.

They were either really in tuned with each other, or that took an insane amount of practice to pull off.

"Well, gentlemen," she said, letting go of Kurt's arm slowly, her eyes meeting his, shining with admiration, "shall we go inside and feed the beast?"

"I think that would be best," Richard agreed, kissing his wife's hand and following her to the house. The tide seemed to change with the arrival of Tabitha. Kurt saw Richard lean on her, probably needing her closeness for strength the way Kurt and Sebastian sometimes did with each other. He was still adhering to the plan, but with Tabitha leading the charge, getting them past the first hurdle – walking through the front door.

Kurt didn't expect Tabitha at all. Considering the way Sebastian talked about her – her keen business sense, the diligent way she ran her company and single-handedly managed her stocks, her fierce independence – Kurt definitely didn't picture this woman, with her simple Bohemian-style dinner dress, her mane of free-flowing hair, her minimal makeup, but most of all, her warm, bordering on flirtatious, personality. She seemed so low-maintenance. Kurt could picture her on the day-to-day, in a Boho crocheted cap and artfully patched jeans, chasing her son through the acres of green grass, wiling the day away with a kite string in one hand and her iPhone in the other.

Kurt watched Tabitha and Richard walk ahead of them and sighed.

All of a sudden, he felt really broody.

"Are you alright?" Sebastian asked, taking Kurt's arm where Tabitha had abandoned it.

Kurt gazed up at his boyfriend with a sly half-grin.

"You're kind of bringing on the heavy with the marriage talk, aren't you?" Kurt asked, adopting a teasing tone to hide the way his voice shook over the topic – one he didn't think they would be broaching for a long time.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian said, but without a hint of regret. "I'm not trying to freak you out or rush you or anything. It's just, I know what I want for the future, and I know that it has you in it. And if you're not sure that you want me the same way, then that's fine. We'll take this as fast or as slow as you want. But I want you to know that I'm in this for the long haul."

"And this isn't just some exaggerated hero complex?" Kurt asked, kicking at a stone with the toe of his shoe, watching it bounce away instead of looking into Sebastian's intense gaze. "You're not falling for me because you think I saved your life?"

Sebastian stopped walking. He took Kurt by the elbow and pulled him into his arms, wrapping them around Kurt's waist and perching his chin on Kurt's shoulder.

"You _did_ save my life," Sebastian whispered, "but I fell in love with you long before that. Like I said, you saved my life every day that I was with you." Sebastian placed a kiss behind Kurt's ear. "I don't know how I'm going to show you how much you mean to me…"

"We'll figure it out," Kurt said, chuckling. "I'm sure you'll find a way."

"And what about you, Kurt Hummel…"

In the space between words, Kurt's heart stopped, assuming Sebastian was about to ask if Kurt wanted to marry him, because whether Kurt wanted to or not was immaterial. He wasn't prepared to answer that question.

"Sebastian, I…"

"Do you love me?"

Kurt held his breath, not about to sigh and make his relief apparent.

"Yes, Sebastian," he said, turning his face to talk against Sebastian's cheek. "I absolutely love you."

"Come on, lovebirds," Tabitha called back. She and Richard had stopped walking, and stood arm-in-arm, staring. Kurt wondered how long they had been watching. Judging by the smile on Tabitha's face, that spread to her eyes and refused to stop, Kurt guessed it had been a while. "Let's go face down the demon."

Tabitha and Richard waited for Kurt and Sebastian to catch up, and then the two couples entered the house together, silently, the way sinners would enter a church, with eyes cast down, hoping not to get caught.

Kurt expected the Smythe house to be extravagant, but he didn't want to gawk so he didn't really look at first. He observed the house from his profile in glimpses, and what he garnered about the overall atmosphere of the place as the party made their way through the foyer was that it was cold and impersonal, lavishly decorated but in a conservative way – furnishings that were expensive and elegant but not too daring, paintings by contemporary masters but not their most noteworthy. This house had an excess of potential but it was squandered, the same way Sebastian's father had tried to do with his son by disowning him and banishing him from his life.

Before they reached the dining room, they were greeted – or more to the point, blocked - by a tall, imposing man dressed in a black suit starched within an inch of its life. He wore an expression of such extreme superiority that someone who didn't know better might be fooled into believing they were meeting the governor, or some other head of state. He kept his arms rigidly at his sides, and the smug glimmer in his eyes seemed to be aimed at Sebastian and Sebastian alone. Kurt hated to admit that he could pinpoint the physical traits that Sebastian had inherited from this man – his piercing green eyes, his chiseled jaw, and his calculating smirk, though it felt much less conceited when Sebastian wore it.

"Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns," the man said, eyes boring holes into Sebastian's face…until he happened to notice Kurt standing beside him, their arms looped together, and then he stared at him with curiosity. "Cornelius Arnold Smythe," he said, extending a hand to Kurt with a twinge on his lips that attempted to be a fake smile then decided not to make the effort. "I assume that you are my son's personal assistant or…something?"

The question in Cornelius's authoritative voice demanded an explanation.

"Father," Sebastian said, not at all hiding his disdain, "Kurt is my boyfriend. I'm sure you've been informed."

"Sebastian, this isn't the time for your morbid jokes," his father grumbled, taking on a tone so like one that Dave used to use, Kurt almost took a step back. "Where is the young lady you brought with you? I'm quite eager to see that you've come to your senses."

"Now, Father…" Richard stepped in, but Cornelius didn't want to hear what his youngest son had to say.

"Quiet, Richard," he snapped. "I believe your brother has something to say to me."

Sebastian stood tall, holding securely to Kurt's arm while his father glowered over him.

"Father," Sebastian said. "This is Kurt Hummel, and he is my date for the evening…because I'm gay. Still gay. Gay gay gay-diddy gay gay."

"Don't you talk that way in my house," Cornelius said, tilting his nose into the air. "You will show me proper respect as long as you are under my roof. If you cannot show me the respect that I'm due, you may leave."

Sebastian took a step closer, but Cornelius would not back down, and Kurt feared that the two might come to blows.

The voice of calm and reason, Richard stepped between them, refusing to be shoved aside.

"May I remind you, _Father_, that this is a business dinner? We have decisions about the company that have to be made, and for that, Sebastian needs to be here."

"And I'm not setting a foot further into this house without Kurt," Sebastian said, anticipating that his father might make some rude suggestion like that Kurt could wait in the car.

Cornelius's jaw tightened, but his smirk didn't waver. His eyes barely moved but he still managed to stare down Richard, Sebastian, and Kurt, standing in the threshold of the dining room, waiting to enter.

"Fine," Cornelius said, stepping aside to let everyone in, singling out Kurt as he passed by. "This looks like it might turn out to be a rather amusing evening."

They didn't talk business over dinner, resorting to chitchat to get through the meal. It seemed that everyone knew something was coming, even if the individual players in the saga weren't entirely agreed as to _what_ exactly, and it was quietly decided that those matters would be best left till after the Beef Bourguignon and the Salmon Roulade. Even the staff seemed savvy to the stress mounting around the table, making sure to stay on hand to keep the wine glasses full.

Sebastian looked around the table, specifically at the place settings, going over them twice, then took several glances at the door.

"Where is mother tonight?" he asked, addressing his question at his brother, but it was his father who leapt to the answer.

"She is unwell," Cornelius said with what seemed like great satisfaction, "and will not be joining us," then in a voice slightly above a murmur but loud enough for everyone present to hear, "which is just as well seeing as she never has anything intelligent to say anymore."

Sebastian slid to the edge of his seat, jaw locked, ready to tear his father to pieces, and with that, Cornelius set the mood for the evening.

Dinner started out uncomfortable and turned into a disaster.

In the space of two hours, Sebastian's father had managed to insult Sebastian, Richard, their mother, and in a veiled, subtle way, Tabitha and Toby, but most especially Kurt.

Cornelius's jabs at Kurt's expense were excessive and cruel. From the moment they sat down to eat, the questions started, one after another, sometimes not even waiting until Kurt had answered one fully before cutting him off and moving on to the next.

"So, what is it that you _do_ exactly?" he asked Kurt as the salad plates were being cleared and the appetizers brought in.

"I work for a publishing company," Kurt answered, wiping his hands on a napkin and holding back a grimace as Sebastian inadvertently dug his nails into Kurt's leg at the sound of his father's interrogating tone. "I receive submissions, I edit, I ghost write…"

"Ah, always the bride's maid but never the bride," Cornelius snubbed.

"Actually, Sebastian tells us that Kurt has a book in the works," Richard put in. "A mystery-action-adventure, if I recall." Richard looked at Kurt with a warm, supportive smile, and Kurt nodded.

"That's correct," Kurt said, leaving it at that, steering clear of the finer details – details inappropriate to mention around people preparing to eat.

"Well, I guess you don't need any kind of a college degree to be a writer, do you?" Cornelius continued, inspecting his fork for cleanliness while Sebastian's arm began to shake. Kurt put a hand over Sebastian's and laced their fingers together, squeezing lightly.

"I actually did attend college," Kurt defended calmly, neglecting to mention the fact that he had yet to graduate, but that wasn't the point.

"Oh, really. And where did you matriculate?" Cornelius asked, more involved with his appetizer than he was in the conversation.

"NYADA," Kurt answered. When Cornelius raised an eyebrow, Kurt elaborated, "It's a performing arts academy in New York."

"The premiere performing arts university for musical theater in the country," Tabitha added, enthusiastically throwing her support behind Kurt as well.

"Performing arts," Cornelius sniffed. "Never put much store behind the performing arts, to tell you the truth. The local high school keeps trying to get me to sponsor their new theater. Even offered to put my name on the thing, but I won't have it. We've had enough embarrassment to the Smythe name lately without that being one more." Cornelius picked up his spoon and inspected it as well. "That reminds me…Sebastian used to sing. Didn't you, Sebastian?"

"I still do, Father," Sebastian said, keeping his voice utterly emotionless.

Kurt knew this tactic, too. Sebastian wasn't attaching feeling to his accomplishments or his likes, giving his father less ammunition to use against him.

"And he has a wonderful voice," Kurt gushed, his face rushing with color, remembering their adventurous Karaoke night when Sebastian sang for him, and all the other times as well – usually while making love.

"You're a tenor, if I remember correctly," Cornelius continued. "And what would that make you, Kurt? A soprano?"

Sebastian slammed a hand on the table, upsetting his water glass and making everyone but Cornelius jump. A waiter rushed in to clean the mess, and Sebastian switched from water to wine.

"I'm a countertenor, actually," Kurt said, recovering a lost, infallible pride.

"Really," Cornelius answered, uninterested since his jibe failed to deliver the desired punch. "Your parents must be _so_ proud."

"They are," Kurt answered, his eyes locking on Sebastian's, his smile unfaltering, trying to lend Sebastian his calm, his quiet strength.

Sebastian drank way more wine than usual to dull his murderous urges. During the main course, Cornelius backed off Kurt, realizing he wasn't going to get the rise he was digging for, and instead spoke about the plague of homosexuality in general: how it destroyed the sanctity of traditional marriage, how it was unnatural, immoral, and a sin in the eyes of God – all arguments that Cornelius Arnold Smythe had no place making since he had been destroying his own marriage with immoral sins for decades. Cornelius droned on, indiscriminately spreading his vitriol and hate, which caused Richard to push his plate away, and Sebastian to saw through his meat so vigorously that he ruined a piece of his mother's vintage wedding China.

But even when Tabitha almost became hot enough to blow her cool, Kurt showed the patience of a saint, smiling when needed, keeping silent when required, but mostly helping anchor Sebastian with a hand on his knee beneath the dinner table and a gentle squeeze when the topic of conversation veered into dangerous territory. But despite Kurt's efforts, somewhere before the coffee and dessert course of the meal, Sebastian had had enough. Kurt felt it in the shift of Sebastian's muscles beneath his hand when Sebastian fidgeted in his seat, his constant jaw tightening, and the way he twisted his cloth napkin in his hands like he was wringing his father's neck.

"Sebastian, honey," Kurt said in his sweetest, most non-threatening voice, dabbing at the sides of his mouth demurely with his napkin, "can you please show me the way to the bathroom?"

Sebastian stared daggers at his father, neither hearing nor acknowledging Kurt's question. Kurt shook Sebastian gently.

"Huh, what?" Sebastian grunted, looking into Kurt's understanding gaze.

"Show me where the bathroom is?" Kurt repeated with a secretive smile.

"Oh…_oh_…" Sebastian said. Seeing the tiny, mischievous glint in Kurt's blue-grey eyes brought him back from his funk. "Of course."

Sebastian stood quickly and pulled out Kurt's chair, lending him a hand to help him to his feet. Tabitha tapped Richard's arm, motioning in their direction as they walked out of the room. Richard laughed once and shook his head.

Sebastian waited until they were far from the frosted French dining room doors and half way into the foyer before he grabbed Kurt's hand and dragged him across the marble floor to a narrow door. Sebastian opened it and pushed Kurt into the cramped space. Kurt blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dim light, and came face to face with a full-length sable coat.

"Ugh, the coat closet? Really?" Kurt grumbled with disgust. It reminded him of his time at McKinley, when he and Blaine used to shut themselves away in the janitor's closet between classes – surprisingly a popular make-out spot for a lot of couples – except this closet smelled like Chanel instead of Lysol. The door shut with a muffled click, evacuating the remaining light. Sebastian didn't give Kurt time to take a breath. He found Kurt's lips expertly in the dark and pinned Kurt against the wall of coats behind him, hands roaming ruthlessly over his body.

"I understand…_mmm_…it's stressful here…_uh_…with your dad being a dick…" Kurt managed between kisses, "and I have no problem…_ah_…with a quick fuck to relieve the tension…(_kiss_)…but couldn't we have found someplace…_ngh_…larger than the closet?"

Kurt felt Sebastian's lips latch onto his neck, and he suddenly couldn't care less where they were as long as Sebastian's lips stayed attached to his skin.

"Nuh," Sebastian mumbled as he quickly dispatched the belt to Kurt's grey slacks. "We can't risk going upstairs. My dad has the ears of a bat and I'm not really interested in him knowing that I ran away before the tiramisu to jerk you off."

Sebastian turned Kurt's body away and shoved his hand into the front of Kurt's pants, straight into his underwear. The minute Sebastian's hand touched Kurt's skin, Kurt moaned.

"Oh _God_," he said, burying his head in the shoulder of a different fur coat.

"Shhh," Sebastian hushed, smiling at Kurt's reaction. "Let's try to stay quiet, shall we?"

"I don't think I can," Kurt whispered, leaning his head back against Sebastian's shoulder. "You're too good at that."

Sebastian felt his face glowing. Even after everything they'd been through together, the time spent re-teaching Kurt to be comfortable with himself as a sexual creature again, Kurt stroking Sebastian's ego turned him into a grinning school boy.

"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, gorgeous," Sebastian commented, teasing Kurt with alternating strokes, sometimes quick, sometimes slow, accompanied by a hand fondling Kurt's balls and a tongue licking up the column of his neck.

"_Nngh_…oh God, Sebastian!" Kurt tried hard to bite his tongue and stay silent, but he failed at every turn, and on top of that, he could no longer stay standing. Sebastian supported Kurt against him, chasing that single moment of absolute abandon that might make the last few hours of torture worthwhile.

"Wh-what do you w-want me to do f-for you?" Kurt whimpered, squirming against Sebastian's chest, head rolling back and forth against his shoulder, helpless in the dark, but the good kind of helpless. The kind of helpless that came with giving his everything to the man he loved. The kind that chased away the nightmares and made life bearable. The kind that Kurt was beginning to appreciate again through every second he spent with Sebastian.

"Cum for me, gorgeous," Sebastian answered with a gentle nip to the nape of Kurt's neck. "That's all I need, to feel you on me, on my hand, to have you quiver against me…then maybe I can have you on your knees later?"

Sebastian didn't need to ask.

Kurt would get on his knees for Sebastian anytime he wanted, even now if they had the time.

"Yes," Kurt moaned. "Yes…anything…"

"Good," Sebastian purred, rutting against Kurt's ass. "God, you're so fucking hot for me, Hummel. I wish I could see your face right now…the way you furrow your brow, your eyes rolling back, that beautiful look of ecstasy…"

Kurt mewled, trapped against Sebastian's muscular chest, sweating as the heat building up between their bodies and the row of expensive fur and wool coats became too much to bear.

"Come on, Kurt…" Sebastian felt Kurt tremble, felt his own need to be deep inside his boyfriend growing. "Cum for me. You want to mess me up, I know you do."

Kurt's body went rigid, his hands grabbing behind him at Sebastian's thighs, trying to get a hold of his ass. Sebastian knew Kurt was close, felt Kurt trying to meet his hand with shallow thrusts, but Sebastian couldn't let Kurt cum without one important thing.

"I love you, gorgeous," Sebastian whispered as he gently bit the line of Kurt's neck, not hard enough to leave any marks. "God, I love you, and I always will."

That did it. That always did it. Those words were the finishing touch to perfection. Every rapturous moment between them ended in _I love you_, from the first moment Sebastian let the words slip from his lips. Every touch, every kiss, every bite, every fuck, was always and only about how much Sebastian loved Kurt, and how much Kurt loved Sebastian back. It didn't matter if the moment was slow and intimate, or fast and dirty. Sebastian loved Kurt. It was simple, it was poignant, and it was repeatedly stated.

"I love you…I love you…" Sebastian whispered into Kurt's hair as he came. "I love you…" he mumbled as he gently stroked Kurt through his orgasm. "I love you…" he punctuated with kisses as Kurt's breathing slowed and his body began to relax in Sebastian's arms.

Kurt turned his face to meet Sebastian's, forehead shimmering with a slight sheen of sweat, eyes wide and lust blown, shimmering in the faint light leaking in from the narrow space beneath the door.

"I…I love you…too…Sebastian," Kurt panted. The sated sound in Kurt's voice – his musical, singularly fantastic, high-pitched voice - melted the tension from Sebastian's shoulders, washing away the vile comments his father had made that night. They sat together, Kurt cradled in Sebastian's arms, and normalcy settled in again. They could have been in Kurt's bedroom in Lima, or the hotel room they had hid in after Kurt's arrest, or anywhere in the world, and not in a coat closet in Sebastian's childhood home.

They were together, and together was home.

A quick, repetitive knock rattled the door and shattered Sebastian's carefully mended peace. Kurt startled, but Sebastian held him tight.

"Sebastian!" a harsh voice whispered, the sound carrying through the wood, making Kurt wonder exactly what might have been heard from outside about ten minutes ago. "Sebastian! Hurry up! We've got to get this show on the road."

Sebastian shook his head and chuckled.

"Thanks, bro," Sebastian whispered back. "We'll be out in a few."

He sighed, breathing into Kurt's neck, peppering his skin with kisses, trying to bring their peace back.

"Another beautiful moment kicked in the balls by reality," he muttered, reaching into his back pocket for tissues and handing them to Kurt. "Too bad we don't have another half hour. We could really do some damage to these coats."

Kurt winced. As it was, he didn't want to see the damage they _had_ done to them. He had no idea where someone would send a $3,000 fox-trimmed cashmere coat to get a cum stain out.

Sebastian stood straighter, pulling Kurt with him. He helped Kurt button his shirt and locate his belt. While Sebastian helped him re-dress, Kurt kissed him on the cheek.

"Don't lose your buzz, Smythe," Kurt said. "I don't think we'll be able to sneak off again. We only have dessert to get through anyway."

"I know," Sebastian griped, sounding childish but Kurt understood. "It's going to be the longest dessert course in history."

"Well," Kurt said, wrapping Sebastian up in his embrace, "instead of listening to your dad spout more hate, think of getting through it quickly so we can get to your room…and you can get me naked…and I'll get on my knees…and I'll put my mouth around you…"

"_Fuck_," Sebastian whined, debating, considering staying hidden for another hour so Kurt could blow him. But he knew they couldn't do it. Now wasn't the time. He reached behind him and threw open the door fast, like yanking off a Band-Aid.

"Come on, gorgeous!" He pulled Kurt out of the steaming hot closet, playing the fool to make Kurt laugh. "Dessert awaits!"

They had to stop short of the dining room to straighten their shirts and stop their giggling. The passing wait staff eyed them with knowing smiles and Kurt blushed so dark he felt ready to combust.

"They've taken dessert and coffee into the study," one young woman with a particularly amused smile informed them, and Kurt wanted to turn into dust right there and blow away.

"Thank you," Sebastian said, winding his arm around Kurt's back and leading him along, laughing into Kurt's scarlet red neck. In his head, Sebastian counted the minutes until they could be gone from this place, alone in his room in a wing of the estate far from the main house where he and Kurt wouldn't be disturbed - where Sebastian could share some of his life with Kurt.

Where Sebastian could introduce Kurt to _his_ ghosts.

They heard voices in the hall as they approached the study – raised, irritated voices, and Kurt's steps staggered.

"You don't have to go in there with me if you're not comfortable," Sebastian said, stopping again.

"No," Kurt said with a firm shake of his head. "I'm here to be with you, to support you. I'm staying with you."

Sebastian didn't argue. He was grateful for Kurt, grateful that he didn't have to go through this without him, but he was also afraid that things were going to get worse when they walked through that door. He reached for the doorknob just as his father bickered, "What's taking that boy so long? I hope he had the good sense to give that tart of his the boot. I don't think I can stand being in the same room with him much longer…" Richard raised his voice in Kurt's defense, but Sebastian stopped listening. He pulled his hand away. Did he really have to do this? Did he have to take Kurt out of the arms of one abuser and steer him in the path of another. But Kurt was a big boy, and he made the decision on his own, first leaning forward to give Sebastian a fortifying kiss on the lips, then reaching for the doorknob and throwing open the door.

"Sorry we're late," Kurt said, stepping into the study, leaving Sebastian in the hallway, stunned, "but Sebastian was giving me a tour of the coat closet."

Sebastian followed in as Tabitha threw a hand to her mouth to silence a laugh. Richard turned his head and bit his lip. Cornelius rolled his eyes.

"Sebastian," Cornelius began, ignoring Kurt's remark, "your brother informs me that we need to get down to business, and if that's the case, I'll have to ask your _girlfriend_ to leave."

Sebastian turned on his father, his face glowing with rage.

"Tabitha gets to stay." Sebastian realized way too late how adolescent those words sounded when they left his mouth. He couldn't help it. Whenever he got around his father, he felt like he was back in high school, fighting hard to reach Cornelius's expectations, to exceed them.

"As your brother's _wife_," Cornelius said with snide emphasis, "she shares an investment in the company."

"And I fully intend on making Kurt an executor on my portion of the estate," Sebastian said.

Kurt's eyes snapped up, staring with shock at Sebastian's face. If Sebastian was telling the truth, and Kurt had no doubt that he was, they hadn't discussed this before. This was a huge step, almost as big as marriage in some senses. Kurt made it a point not to discuss money matters with Sebastian, because as far as Kurt was concerned, Sebastian's money was none of Kurt's concern.

But apparently, according to Sebastian, it was – and he trusted Kurt enough to give him a share of that responsibility.

Kurt didn't know what to say. _Thank you_ was the first thing that came to mind, but once the shock died down, he had to ask himself - was this even a responsibility he wanted?

But there was no time to think about that since blow after blow had been delivered between Sebastian and his father, and Kurt had been too shell-shocked to register them.

"If Sebastian wants Kurt to stay, then Kurt stays," Richard announced. "Now, let's move on, since I can tell over the past few weeks that you have no intention of being reasonable…" Cornelius smiled smugly at Sebastian for a moment before he heard Richard continue, "Father." The older man's eyes turned on his son with such a ferocity that Kurt thought Richard might fold, but he stood firm in the face of his father's wrath. Kurt looked the man over, less statuesque than his brother, less imposing than his father, but still with an undeniable fortitude, which may have come somewhat from his wife holding staunchly to his hand. Wherever that strength came from, it radiated from him in full force. "I've had Sebastian's trust fund reinstated in full, including his car, his properties, everything that had been bequeathed to him."

"How did you…" His father became a strange conundrum of emotion, equal expressions of anger and awe dividing his face.

"It turns out you didn't have executive power over our finances, the company, any of it," Richard said. "It's belonged to Sebastian and me since we turned eighteen. We each have a 26% share of the business and all its holdings. Combined, that gives us a 52% interest and that gives _us_ the controlling share."

After that announcement, the room went quiet. Kurt stood beside Sebastian, and Richard along with Tabitha, all waited for the elder Smythe to make a statement. But he sat in his leather chair and looked at the faces around him, his face returning to his default nonplussed expression.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Sebastian asked, even though a lot of this information was news to him.

"I'll start talking when anything your brother says makes sense," Cornelius said, dismissing his son's argument.

"I think it makes perfect sense," Sebastian countered. "From now on, what Richard and I say goes, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"_You_ want to have control of the business and the finances," Cornelius laughed, "but look what you've done with it? So what if this was left to you and not me, as you claim? It was given to you by _my_ parents. Do you really think they intended for you to squander your money on your gay lover?"

Sebastian gritted his teeth, too boiled over with fury at his father to come up with a compelling argument. Kurt was floored. He hadn't imagined that Sebastian could get this frazzled. Sebastian had even handled staring down a gun better than this.

"I think our grandparents wanted us to be happy," Richard answered in his stead.

Cornelius scoffed and shook his head, the discussion done as far as he was concerned.

"If this is all the _business_ you have to discuss with me…"

"If you don't intend on being a reasonable adult, then you will need to leave," Richard cut in swiftly, picking up his iPhone, not looking his father in the eye. "Effective immediately."

Cornelius gave another indignant laugh, but it died when Richard didn't respond, instead typing out a message on his phone and pressing send.

"What do you mean, leave?" Cornelius asked. "You can't put me out of my own house, you insufferable little ingrate!"

"Actually, we can," Richard said, making sure to include Sebastian in this decision, even though Kurt could see by the subtle shift of expressions on Sebastian's face and the way he clamped his jaw that he hadn't heard anything about this before. It really was a shame that the traffic had kept them from making it here earlier. This would have been good information for Sebastian to know if the boys were going to present a unified front, though Richard carried the conversation admirably. "The house doesn't belong to you. It, like everything else, was put in trust. It, too, belongs to Sebastian and me, along with everything in it. That would include your belongings, too," Richard pointed out dryly, "but I think we're agreed that neither of us want those."

Cornelius looked at his two sons, eyes switching frantically between them, trying to decide who he was angrier at. It always sounded, the way Sebastian told it, that Cornelius held his younger son in much higher regard than Sebastian, but at some point something must have changed. He didn't seem to like – or love – either of them.

"I'm not about to give in to you two brats," Cornelius said defiantly, crossing his arms over his chest, relaxing into the leather chair he was sitting in as if God himself would have to force him out of it. "I have given my life to that business. This family is nothing without me, and there is no way that either of you can make me go anywhere."

Richard sighed heavily and Cornelius smiled, taking that gesture as a sign of weakness, of this conversation ending with him as the victor.

But it was really the beginning – the beginning of Richard furthering the rift that his father had made in their family.

Of disowning their father completely.

And while he planned to do this, Sebastian moved to stand by his brother, completely oblivious of Richard's next move but with him nonetheless – much the same way Richard stood beside Sebastian from afar while he tried to defend Kurt from his stalker.

"I was afraid you'd say that," Richard said, his voice quiet but stern. "Earlier today I called the holding company that manages the company's accounts, our trust funds, the deed to the house, all our family's assets. The company lawyers have been in contact with me throughout this entire meeting…"

Kurt watched Cornelius's smug expression drop. He saw Tabitha rise from her seat and put hands on her husband's shoulders. Then he felt Sebastian take his hand and squeeze. Apparently, Richard was about to drop a bomb on their father – a huge one – and everyone around Kurt seemed to know what it was.

"Richard Adam Smythe," Cornelius said, rising to his feet, "what have you…"

"I've cut you off, dad," Richard said. "As of right now, you have nothing. Not a cent to your name."

Cornelius's green eyes flew open wide – inhumanly wide. He slammed his hands flat on his desk.

"You little piece of…"

"I've frozen your bank account, every asset in your name," Richard went on. "Security is putting a lock on your private garage as we speak. I've erased your code from the gate. We will give you thirty minutes to pack up as many belongings as you need, then security will escort you off the grounds."

Cornelius's smug smile didn't return. His face went from red to white in the space of a second. He sputtered between curses and insults as his mind tried to find a loophole.

"You…you can't do that," he said, all arguments failing him when he realized that yes, Richard could, but even more infuriating, Sebastian could, too.

Richard looked up from his iPhone with grim determination in his eyes.

"I just did."

"You sniveling…you mindless…you stupid…" Cornelius started several sentences without being able to find the one that might have the right effect. He couldn't intimidate his sons. They didn't respect him that way anymore.

"It's alright, Father," Sebastian said, his own signature smirk back from hiding. "You'll survive. Besides, they're always hiring at FedEx."

"You little bastard! I'll..." Cornelius warned.

"Don't take it personally," Sebastian continued with his dig with no one to stop him, every one knowing that he deserved to have this moment. "It's just good business."

"You'll all regret this," Cornelius promised, rounding his desk and barreling their way. "I'll make every one of you pay!"

Sebastian stood in front of Kurt, and Richard pushed his wife behind him farther, raising his phone to his ear.

"Hello? I need two security officers up to study alpha to escort Cornelius Smythe off the premises…"

"You bastard!" the man roared, unhinged, his face burning red down his throat and into his starched suit, his eyes wilder than any Kurt had ever seen – even compared with Chandler's, but in a different way. "I should have known you'd go turncoat, just like your failure of a brother…" Two men in dark blue uniforms entered the room, surrounding Cornelius as he continued his tirade. "I didn't raise sons. I raised freaks and cowards…oh, wait! I didn't raise you! Your lunatic mother did! So this…this…whatever this is…" he gestured to the group, "is in no way my fault!"

"Mr. Smythe?" the first security guard said. He was a huge man, with dark skin, close-cropped hair, and a presence that reminded Kurt very much of Justice. "We're going to have to ask you to come with us."

Cornelius looked like he was about to attack Sebastian; if there was a chance that he might haul off and hit his son, he quickly reconsidered. Either because he had no desire to be dragged forcibly from his house or because he realized he was losing, Cornelius stopped, straightened his jacket, and regained his composure.

"I am going to fight this," he said, looking at Richard, then Sebastian, then straight at Kurt, as if Kurt had any say in the matter, as if he were the cause of all this. "I'm going to fight you all and I'm going to win. I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I'm not going to let this go."

"Let him get his things," Richard instructed the guards as they flanked Cornelius and walked him from the room. "I've already told him, he has thirty minutes."

"Fuck you!" Cornelius shot back, and oddly enough it was those two words from the mouth of a man who shielded himself behind wealth and breeding that turned Kurt's body cold.

When Cornelius had gone, his footsteps echoing down the hall, unlikely to return, Tabitha melted into her husband's back, and the whole room seemed to breathe a collective sigh.

Sebastian was the first to break the renewed silence.

"You did it!" Sebastian congratulated his brother, slapping him on the arm. "Fuck a duck! I don't think I've ever been prouder to call you my brother in my entire life!"

"Yeah, well," Richard said, not sounding quite as relieved as Sebastian did. "I can't let you guys have the franchise on brave deeds."

"So, all that bullshit you said," Sebastian asked, "about us having controlling interest in the company? All that was true?"

Richard cocked a brow at his brother.

"Weren't you studying business in college?" he asked. "Didn't you attend a single class at Harvard?"

"Yeah, Ricky," Sebastian replied with a faint sneer. "I understood what you said. I just didn't know it applied to us."

"While I was getting your assets un-frozen, I had a forensic accountant take a look at all the finances. He discovered some very interesting things." Richard's eyes darted away. Sebastian didn't seem to notice, something else on the forefront of his mind, but Kurt caught it. There was something else – _lots_ of somethings else – that Richard wasn't telling.

"Coolness," Sebastian said, letting it lie. Sometimes Sebastian had a one-track mind. Around Kurt, most of the time, that track was set on _sex_, but this time, there was something else important that he needed to know. "Anyway, what's the plan, Ricky? What are we going to do about mom? Is she going to live here with you guys or…" Sebastian rubbed his hands together, still hyper from the adrenaline rush of standing up to his dad. Richard had that rush, too. Dealing with their father had always been a tricky business. It was more of an art form really, like a volatile dance. When the boys were teenagers and they wanted something from their father, there was a meticulous procedure that needed to be adhered to – first the obligatory ass kissing, then the soft negotiating, they would let their dad low-ball them, some hard negotiating, and if it all worked out to plan, in the end, they would end up with a fraction of what they originally wanted.

Like many kids of unreasonable, power-hungry parents, they were usually grateful if they got anything.

Of course, Cornelius was a consistently stingy man, but Richard always made out better than Sebastian did. That didn't mean that Richard liked it. He hated the way their father treated his brother. For the first time in their lives, the boys were calling the shots in the Smythe household, and it was a tremendous high. They had been set free.

The fight was over for Sebastian, but Richard still had one more person to stand strong against.

His older brother.

Kurt looked at the man's face, the way it didn't seem to know on which mask it should land, shifting from one to the other while he tried to make up his mind.

Richard didn't seem to have this problem when handling Cornelius, but he had more practice dealing with his father than with his brother.

Or maybe he just cared about Sebastian more.

But when Richard finally made a decision and his mask settled, Kurt knew. Kurt knew because it was the same expression his father wore many times when he had to explain to Kurt over and over that his mother was gone, and she wasn't coming back.

"Sebastian," Richard said quietly. "I think dad's right about one thing. I think mom _does_ need to go to a home."


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N:** _Warning of anxiety and minor drunkenness._

"What do you mean, _dad was right_?" Sebastian asked. "Why…why would we put her in a home? Isn't that part of what this was – taking back control so we could protect mom?"

Stuck in the middle of a room whirling with suffocating emotions, filling up the air around them like water in a tank, ready to pull them down and drown them together, Kurt didn't know where to focus - on Sebastian, who looked like he might simultaneously punch his brother in the face and curl into a ball and cry; on Richard, who stood boldly in the face of this man who he loved and respected, who only recently came back into his life, knowing that there was a possibility Sebastian might explode; or Tabitha, who stared at Sebastian with pleading eyes, eyes that reflected his pain. Kurt took a step back so he could see all three, as confused as Sebastian as to what was going on, as weary as Richard with the drama of the evening, which for him must have been ongoing for the past few months, and as concerned as Tabitha for the two brothers in this face off, ready to offer comfort where needed.

"You're right," Richard said, staying centered even though his stance screamed exhaustion, his eyes drooping in the corners with a need to shut, to surrender to sleep and finally end this day. "We are going to protect mom, and I promise you, _this_ is the best decision."

"I don't…I don't understand," Sebastian said, not able to shake the stammer in his voice. "What are you saying? You…we did all this for nothing? He still wins?"

Sebastian took a step forward, but Richard didn't take a step back – much like their father. The difference was Sebastian was begging Richard – begging for an explanation. Richard didn't want to intimidate his brother. He wanted to be there for him.

"No, he doesn't win." Richard sighed. "Sebastian, you haven't seen her. When you left, things went downhill fast."

Sebastian's eyelids narrowed.

"Explain _downhill_?"

Richard dropped his eyes, pressing his fingers to his brow.

"She's regressing," Richard explained. "Disoriented. When it started, things were okay because she was still fairly lucid, but now…" Richard shook his head.

"Well, fuck it," Sebastian said. "We'll hire in-home care. A full staff of nurses, doctors, whatever she needs. We can take care of her right here." Richard shook his head more but Sebastian didn't stop. He thought he had hit on the solution, and Kurt cringed, knowing it wasn't that simple - knowing that Sebastian knew it, too. "She needs to be with family, Ricky. That's the best thing for her."

"We tried that," Richard said, lifting his eyes from the floor. "It worked for a little while, but the more her mind slipped away, the harder it was for her to be here. This house is big and confusing. She got lost a couple of times and it frightened her. Being here, it's not…it's not what she wants…" Sebastian furrowed his brow, but Richard didn't explain. "Look, Sebastian, I'm not dad, alright? I'm not leaving her out on a street corner. She's going to a place…a _nice_ place. It's nothing like the home dad was going to dump her in." Richard took a pause to catch his breath. "Besides, it wasn't my decision."

"It's not what she wants, it wasn't my decision…" Sebastian mimicked, tossing the words back into his brother's face. "Then whose decision was it? Who's pulling the strings here, Ricky?"

"Mom," Richard answered, the single word dropping in among them like a grenade with the pin pulled, the four of them waiting for it to go off.

"Explain," Sebastian demanded, not asking anymore, no longer begging. He had enough of this. He felt too far out of the loop, estranged. He and his mom had always been thicker than thieves, but now he felt like an outsider in her life.

Kurt looked at Richard and his heart went out to the man. He looked so done, so ready to call it quits. Kurt wanted to take Sebastian's arm and pull him away, convince him that they could wait till tomorrow for the answers to these questions, but that wouldn't be fair – not to the man who drove them for hours straight, at midnight, so Kurt could be reunited with his dad.

"While I was investigating the company's accounts, I started checking into the family's personal accounts as well. I didn't just hire a forensic accountant, I hired a lawyer - an outside guy, an old friend from school, someone who didn't have any loyalty to the business or our family, who wouldn't feel a need to report back to dad with what we found. Turns out, mom had a lawyer, too. Someone off the books as well – a man who had been trying to convince mom to leave dad for years."

Sebastian's shocked face screwed up in the most awkward way.

"Was mom…_cheating_?" Sebastian stepped headlong into the land of double-standards with that question, but he couldn't help the slip. He wouldn't begrudge his mother happiness if she found it in the arms of another person. His father had been finding happiness between the legs of other women for years. Still this was his_ mom _they were talking about – his moral, ethical, upstanding, church-going mother - and her having a relationship outside of her marriage, even a shitty marriage, was kind of a creepy thing to think about.

"No," Richard laughed. He wasn't about to judge his brother. Maybe he had entertained the same thought and had the same reaction. "They were old friends. She hired him to protect her interests, and ours, in case dad pulled something asinine…like he did with you."

"So, how does finding this lawyer guy play into mom wanting to be in a home?"

"She filed a living will." Richard moved away to a far corner of the room where a brown leather briefcase sat propped against the wall. Richard picked it up, carried it to the desk, and opened it, pulling out a blue file folder and bringing it back over to Sebastian. "She didn't tell dad about it. Her lawyer was supposed to tell us about it in the event of her death, but when the Alzheimer's started to progress rapidly, mom lost touch with the guy."

Sebastian opened the file and flipped through the document inside. Logically, he understood it, every word of it. He saw the provisions for her care, recommendations with regard to the homes she chose to spend her last days (she actually had first, second, and third choices), her assets outlined in detail, even down to the deed to the plot where she wanted to be buried (she had chosen to be cremated and have her ashes shipped to her family's country estate in France instead of the Smythe Mausoleum in Pioneer Cemetery there in Westerville).

"Heartland Manor Hospice and Retirement Community," Sebastian read with a nod and a lump in his throat. Kurt heard Sebastian's voice tremble, tears threatening. It wasn't obvious, but Kurt knew it in that way that somebody who has heard a person in pain before knows. "At this home? Is that where she is now?"

"Yes," Richard said, resting his hands on his hips. "We intercepted dad at his attempt to send her to some dump in Columbus and we got her admitted to the first facility on her list." Richard chuckled humorlessly. "I don't think dad even knows. We're going tomorrow to finalize some things. I think you should come and visit." Richard saw the objection in his brother's eyes and added, "I think that you and Kurt should both come."

The room went silent. So many silences, so many things left unsaid, so many emotions not completely realized, and it was tearing Sebastian and his brother apart. Maybe not from each other – they shared a bond after their previous ordeals that transcended friendship – but inside. Even standing perfectly still, piece by piece was tearing off and falling away.

Looking at Sebastian, Kurt started to see the holes forming.

Sebastian stared at the living will in his hands, but he had stopped turning the pages. Kurt didn't think that he was reading it anymore, just looking at it, trying to make sense of the words in front of him even as the letters bled together and stopped looking like words anymore.

"Alright," he said, closing the file and handing it to Richard. Richard held it to his chest; Tabitha folded her arms around him from behind. "Alright, we'll go with you. If…if that's alright with you." Sebastian turned his head and looked at Kurt. "Kurt? Is that alright?"

Kurt saw the intense sadness in Sebastian's eyes, felt it in his chest when Sebastian's gaze caught his eyes – a sadness that no words had any chance of capturing.

"Of course," Kurt said. "Of course, it's alright."

"Great." Richard clapped a hand on Sebastian's shoulder, and on a microscopic level, Sebastian flinched. Sebastian reached out an arm to his side. Kurt didn't see it, he felt it. He felt the tremor of movement when it hit the air. Kurt reached back and took his hand.

"I…" Sebastian said the single word and then whatever came after it stopped. Whatever the rest of that sentence was, it disappeared. "We should go. It's late."

"Of course," Richard said, offering his brother a small, tired smile. It was sincere, and that's all that mattered. "Will you be staying here or…"

"Yes," Sebastian said, cutting Richard short, needing to go. "We're staying here."

Richard nodded, but neither man moved to leave. Tabitha unwound her arms from her husband's torso and Richard looked immediately bereft. She approached Kurt and Sebastian and hugged them both together, pulling Kurt in close to wrap her arms around them.

"I'm so glad you're both here," she said in a well-practiced voice, one that hid her tears. It might have seemed like a bizarre thing to say considering, but she didn't mean _I'm glad you came to dinner_, or _it was nice to see you_. She meant _thank you for supporting my husband_. Thank you for being strong when we needed you. The last few months must have been hell in the Smythe household for Richard to handle without his brother. Kurt couldn't even imagine it.

He couldn't imagine it, because he couldn't imagine a family who – at its roots – wasn't all about love.

Kurt couldn't think of an appropriate response. _Anytime_ didn't fit. Neither did _thank you for inviting us_, or _let's do this again sometime_. So he held her tighter, held her longer.

Kurt didn't feel Sebastian hug them back, but he didn't take it as a slight.

It didn't seem like Sebastian was even able to move.

"We should…we should go," Sebastian said. He didn't sound convinced. Kurt didn't think that Sebastian knew _what_ he should do.

"Yeah," Kurt agreed, gently pulling out of Tabitha's hug. "We should go."

"Well, then, we'll see you guys tomorrow," Richard said, eyes lingering on his brother's face, then on Kurt's. "It was very nice to meet you," he said, extending a hand for Kurt to shake. "An honor, really."

"Thank you," Kurt replied, shaking Richard's hand, embarrassed by the fuss Tabitha and Richard made over him. "It was nice finally putting a face to the name. We'll see you tomorrow."

Kurt took Sebastian's hand and pulled him away. Sebastian walked with him, using Kurt's momentum to move, but he didn't speak. If Kurt had to put a description to his expression, he would say blank. Sebastian looked blank, as if his conversation with Richard had erased him, his every emotion wiped away. Kurt had no idea where they were going. Sebastian's room? Somewhere in the house? When they stepped through the doorway and out into the hall, Sebastian revived, enough, at least, to lead the way.

"So, where is your room?" Kurt asked, starting mindless conversation, hoping to bring his boyfriend back. This catatonic state of Sebastian's unnerved Kurt. Kurt knew something about shutting people out. He had done it to Sebastian not too long ago. Maybe turnabout was fair play but Kurt didn't think he was strong enough to handle it. He wasn't strong in the same way Sebastian was strong.

If Sebastian blocked him out, Kurt wouldn't be able to take it.

"We have to…we have to drive there," Sebastian said.

"Drive?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah." Sebastian took Kurt's elbow and put an arm around his waist. "There's, uh, a way of getting there through the house, but driving is actually faster." Sebastian's steps quickened the closer they got to the front door until he was sprinting for it, reaching out for the doorknob and grabbing it before the butler could open it for them. Kurt smiled at the startled older man, who stopped hurrying toward them when Sebastian opened the door. Suddenly they were outside – out in the dark and the chill air, which seemed hugely more inviting than a single room of that enviable house.

Sebastian slowed his steps as they approached his car but he was in no less of a hurry. Now that they were outside, he breathed easier, as if he had been holding his breath for four straight hours. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the car, but he stopped at opening the door.

"Hey, gorgeous?" Sebastian said, his hand resting on the door handle. "Would you mind driving?"

Kurt snapped his head up and stared at Sebastian with such an absurd expression, Sebastian laughed out loud.

"Me?" Kurt asked, at a loss for words. If Sebastian wanted to knock Kurt completely for a loop, that question did it. It might have actually beaten out the marriage conversation for shock value. That Porsche was Sebastian's baby. Yes, in perspective, it was just a car, and with the amount of money that Sebastian had, he could buy two or three more, even in the same limited edition style and color. _This_ car meant something more to Sebastian. Kurt saw it in Sebastian's eyes every time he looked at it, every time he sat in it - every time he turned the key in the ignition, curled his fingers around the steering wheel, and settled into the driver's seat. That Porsche brought Sebastian serenity. Kurt could almost be justified feeling jealous of it.

And here Sebastian was handing over the keys.

Kurt knew that Sebastian trusted him, that eventually he would let Kurt drive it, but not tonight. Not after all of that emotional upheaval. Driving his Porsche struck Kurt as the kind of thing that Sebastian might need to do to unwind after such a stressful evening. Kurt didn't think he could be anymore stunned if Sebastian had asked Kurt to punch him in the nose.

"Yeah," Sebastian chuckled, raising a hand and rubbing the back of his neck. "After all the wine and the…I don't think I can drive. It would be embarrassing as hell to get into an accident here. Ricky would never let me live it down. Would you mind?" He tossed Kurt the keys. Kurt snatched them in mid-air. "Go ahead, gorgeous. I trust you."

Kurt stared at the keys in his hand with those words echoing in his ears, a brief memory of the day his father handed him the keys to his first vehicle – a Lincoln Navigator – filling his thoughts, along with him saying those same three words - _I trust you_. Kurt had been so excited, so thrilled. That Navigator meant the world to him, and not because it was an exceptional vehicle, which it was. It was a symbol that his father trusted him, that he thought of Kurt as an adult, a man who could handle responsibility.

It was Kurt's ticket to the next stage of his life – and to freedom. In a way, it had _bought_ him his freedom.

It was the thing he sold to get the money he needed to get away from Dave.

Kurt could see this Porsche being kind of the same. It took Sebastian away from his father, from the life he didn't want to live, from the responsibilities he didn't want to inherit, but it didn't take him too far. It always brought him back home – back to his brother and his mom.

"Of course I'll drive," Kurt said, trying not to sound too excited under the circumstances. "I'm totally okay to…yup, let's…yeah…" He left off with a giddy laugh, wishing his dad could be there to see him drive a Porsche Cayman S. Sebastian smiled at his boyfriend, at the adorable way Kurt rushed to open the passenger door for him, the same way Sebastian had done for Kurt many times. Sebastian slid into the passenger's seat. It felt weird. He'd never sat in it before. But watching Kurt hop into the driver's seat, smiling softly to himself as he buckled himself in, Sebastian knew he could get used to the view from here. He was glad that one person's night could be saved, even this tiny bit.

Kurt turned the key in the ignition carefully, not wanting to accidentally gun the engine, assuming the Porsche would be temperamental and sensitive – kind of like its owner. But it growled softly from the very first touch, and that moan Kurt couldn't help when he was riding in the passenger seat came back as he toed the gas pedal.

"You like that?" Sebastian asked, the tone of his voice close to suggestive even if his eyes and his heart were a million miles away.

"Oh, yeah," Kurt sighed, throwing the car into gear. "I can _so_ get used to this."

"Well, someday I've got to take you out to the track," Sebastian said, pulling out his iPhone and opening a browser window. "Let you open her up."

"There's a race track in Westerville?" Kurt asked, the idea thrilling him more than it should at the moment.

"Nah, we've got one here on the estate," Sebastian answered idly, focused on his phone. "My dad's got a whole stable of V8s and V12s…or, he did…"

Kurt nodded, biting his tongue to hold it. In the throes of driving a Porsche and preoccupied with making small talk, Kurt was about to ask Sebastian what his dad did with those cars, since Sebastian talked about them in the past tense.

It's not the cars that had gone missing, Kurt realized, but Sebastian's dad. As of an hour ago, Cornelius had taken Sebastian's place as persona non grata.

Kurt kept his mind on the road in front of him and lost himself as best he could in the experience of driving a luxury sports car. Sebastian, eyes glued to his iPhone, managed to direct Kurt, pointing when he needed to turn or simply muttering _left_, _right_, _straight_ at the appropriate times. Kurt didn't want to invade Sebastian's privacy, but in the dark, Kurt saw the reflection of Sebastian's phone screen clear as anything on the Porsche's windshield. The writing was too small to read, but Kurt knew what Sebastian was looking up.

Heartland Manor Hospice and Retirement Community.

Sebastian wanted to see the home where Richard had taken their mother.

Kurt wanted to pull the car over and wrap his arms around Sebastian's neck, kiss him until the entire evening turned into a far and forgotten memory, but he figured best to get them back to Sebastian's room and spend the night making this up to him, even if it wasn't Kurt's responsibility.

Kurt hadn't fully appreciated how large the Smythe estate was until they left the main house to go to Sebastian's room. Correction. Not his room, his _wing_ - the part of the estate where he lived from his pre-teen years to adulthood. How lonely must it have been for Sebastian, as a young man, to live so far from his family?

Apparently, banishment in the Smythe household was a rule, not an exception.

"So, this…this is it?" Kurt asked, pulling up in front of a section that looked much like the front except that the front door was shorter and less grand. That was it – the only real difference. If Kurt didn't know better, he might assume that _this_ was the front of the house. Sebastian peeked up from his phone.

"Yup," Sebastian confirmed, eyes switching back to the screen. "This is it. Mi casa."

"And this is where you lived from _when _again?"

"Oh, I don't know." Sebastian pocketed his phone. "Twelve? Thirteen?"

Kurt didn't believe it. Sebastian could repeat it a thousand times and Kurt still wouldn't believe it. Some people might have called Sebastian lucky, having an entire wing of an enormous mansion to himself at such a young age, having that freedom, playing at being an adult, but Kurt saw it as sad. This had to be the decision of his father, but what about his mother? Forcing her son into isolation like that didn't coincide with everything Kurt knew about her - the admittedly little he knew about her, but he thought he had a good picture of the way she treated her children.

That picture became somewhat sullied by the reality that stood in front of him.

Kurt had to believe that if she _did_ agree to this, there had to be a reason. He hoped that Sebastian would tell him, but for now his questions would have to remain unanswered.

Sebastian climbed out of the car before Kurt, pressing the button that popped the trunk on the fob hanging from the ignition. He walked to the rear of the Porsche and pulled out their bags.

"I could ring for the butler on this side of the house," Sebastian said, hauling Kurt's bag out as Kurt reached for it, not letting him take it, "but I don't want to be a dick. It would take him a while to get here from the main house."

"No," Kurt said, locking up the car and following behind. "No, don't be a dick."

Sebastian smirked, putting the bags down and unlocking the front door.

"I'll try not to," he said, pushing the door open and standing back for Kurt to walk through.

This part of the house was nearly an exact replica of the main house, but scaled down, which made for some disorientation on Kurt's part. It felt like stepping through the doorway to a parallel dimension. The foyer they stood in and the hall in front of them were furnished the same, decorated the same, painted in the same color scheme, accented with the same molding, the same mirrors hanging on the walls. The artwork would have been identical, too, Kurt guessed, if Cornelius could have raised the masters from the dead to paint copies. Whoever he had hired to decorate managed to find paintings similar – floral scenes and landscapes in complimentary styles.

"Yeah," Sebastian said, locking the front door, "kind of freaky, huh?"

Apparently, Sebastian knew what Kurt had been thinking.

"But, why?" Kurt asked, walking with Sebastian as he led the way down the hall to a door on the right.

"Because my dad's a control freak and a megalomaniac," Sebastian said, shrugging. "He likes to have things his way, even if they don't directly affect him. But now that he's out of the picture, I might hire someone to come in and re-do it the way I've always wanted it."

"Why?" Kurt asked, curious if Sebastian's plans included eventually living here. If they were planning a life together, would Kurt get a say? Kurt probably wouldn't mind living in Westerville. It would be fairly close to his father. But he hadn't pictured himself coming back to Ohio, regardless of his knee-jerk reaction from their first night in Lima.

"Because I can," Sebastian said, putting down his bag to open the door, "but mostly out of spite."

The door opened and Sebastian entered first, allowing Kurt as much time as he wanted to take the room in.

Kurt needed it.

Kurt hadn't really understood what Sebastian having his own wing of the estate entailed. He had expected to see a bedroom when Sebastian opened the door – somewhat like his own but ten times the size. But this wasn't just a bedroom shoved in the way back of the house and forgotten, like a dreary dungeon or a prison cell. This was a whole apartment. The door opened on to a spacious living room with a vaulted ceiling. Looking up Kurt could see another floor above them, accessible by a winding staircase to his left. From where he stood, he saw a polished wood railing cordoning the upper level off like a balcony, and on that balcony sat a baby grand piano. He pictured Sebastian sitting at it, playing in the early morning after breakfast, or in the evening before they retired to bed, filling the air with music, and suddenly the idea of living here became immensely more attractive.

In the living room, a wrap-around couch of cream colored leather sat in the middle of a cherry maple wood floor. Kurt walked straight to it, reaching out a hand to touch it. It kind of called him to it, supple and butter soft, the kind of couch that would suck you down into it and be reluctant to let go. A rectangular coffee table sat in front of it – a gilded brass frame holding a single pane of glass, elegant in its simplicity. A vibrantly woven Persian rug lay underneath the coffee table, protecting the wood floor. Kurt had seen Persian rugs before, but they had mostly been expensive knock-offs that definitely looked the part but with none of the spirit that authentic rugs had. This rug was an explosion of finely crafted patterns and precisely matched threads set against a background of russet wine. Gazing down on it, Kurt tried to identify every individual shade of thread, but when he reached thirty separate and distinct colors, he had to stop. Running a toe delicately over the fringe, Kurt gaped in awe at this masterpiece.

"That rug belonged to my mother," Sebastian commented. "She inherited it from her father. If my dad had his way, it would be hanging on a wall, but my mom insisted I have it in here."

Kurt took off his shoes as he listened, afraid of accidentally snagging the gorgeous carpet and ruining it. He walked in a circle, taking in the room and its decor – walls of pale beige, ceiling to floor picture windows that looked out on the property, framed by curtains of pecan brown, simple scrolled molding outlining the ceiling and baseboards, the overall effect exquisitely subtle. A flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall across from the couch and a low cabinet beneath it probably housed DVDs and such, but other than that, there was very little furniture in the room, functional or otherwise. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this room minimalist, crisp and clean, impersonal to a fault.

Kurt felt certain that the living room of the main house looked exactly this way.

"There's a kitchenette down that hall," Sebastian said, motioning in a direction behind Kurt. Kurt turned and saw a small hallway with a door at the end, closed shut. "I've never really used it. I usually ate with my mother."

His _mother_, not his parents. Kurt filed away that piece of information, as he had started to do with every new thing he learned about Sebastian on this trip.

Sebastian walked past Kurt, heading left – the side of the room with the winding staircase – to a pair of French doors, each set with frosted glass in their frames.

"These doors over here," Sebastian said, "lead to my bedroom."

Sebastian opened both doors together, letting them swing to a stop on their own. Kurt watched Sebastian carry their bags in and set them on the bed before he stepped through.

What he walked into – the bedroom Sebastian occupied for a good six years at least – did not look like an average kid's bedroom. Well, of course not. Not with the amount of money the Smythes had. But it wasn't a _kid's_ room, either. It had the same minimalist feel as the living room, the same frugality of décor, without a single touch of childhood to be seen. The bottom half of the walls were dark wood, polished till they gleamed, the top half painted a matte forest green. The furniture – a bed, an end table, a desk and chair, a dresser - matched the wood on the walls, stained deep and with a mirror's finish, soaking up the light, giving the room a shadowy aura, a feeling that there would never be enough lamps to lighten the dim. There were paintings on these walls, too (Cornelius definitely made use of his investments) – a Picasso, a Monet, a Mondrian, a Dumas – each one authentic as far as Kurt could tell, but none of the artists' more renowned works, nothing a collector would clamber over for anything other than the signature on the canvas, lost to little for being hidden away in a child's bedroom. It was hard to believe that _any_ kid would be comfortable here. Kurt could possibly picture a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Sebastian in here, but a twelve-year-old Sebastian? A Sebastian who loved sports and photography and travel?

This room didn't have the floor to ceiling windows that the living room did, but it did have three large windows and a set of French doors with clear glass panes obscured by light green curtains. Kurt could see a sliver of glass from a part in them, but nothing of the outside.

The one personal touch Kurt could see – if it could even be labeled a _personal touch_ – were Sebastian's books. Sebastian had bookcase after bookcase flooded with books, like Kurt had in his room, but where Kurt's books were mostly autobiographies, programs, and musical scores, Sebastian's collection encompassed a mass of varied genres – non-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, every Steven King novel ever written, textbooks from Harvard on business, business law, accounting, and a bunch of old paperbacks printed in French by 19th-Century authors such as Balzac, Flaubert, Sand, and Michelet.

"What?" Kurt asked, peeking back at Sebastian with a mischievous smile. "No mysteries?"

Sebastian walked up to the bookcase. He scanned the books on the shelf in front of Kurt. "A-ha. Here." He slid out a hardcover book and handed it to Kurt. Bereft of its original dust jacket, the cover was an odd shade of mustard yellow, with the title written across the front in black letters.

"_Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective_?" Kurt chuckled.

"Don't laugh. That kid was the shit," Sebastian chided. "Besides…my mom bought it for me." Sebastian glanced at the book in Kurt's hands, nostalgia brimming in his somber green eyes.

Kurt nodded with understanding. He turned the book over in his hands, running gentle fingers down the loose spine, eying the yellowing edges of the pages. The book looked like it had been read to death, which would explain the spine splitting from the binding. He opened the book to the middle, feeling the weight of it in his hands the way it would have felt to a young Sebastian, opening it for the first time. He turned to the cover page to check out the table of contents. It had been a lifetime since Kurt cracked open an _Encyclopedia Brown_ book, but his experience with the series was more _forced to read for school_ than _sentimental gift from a beloved parent_. Flipping to the beginning, Kurt saw an inscription in the left corner of the front cover, written in blue ink –

Pour mon fils bien-aimé,

Tu dois continuer à rêver de toutes tes forces.

Je crois en toi.

Je t'aime.

Maman

_To my beloved son,_

_You've got to keep believing with all your strength._

_I believe in you._

_I love you. _

_Mom_

The dedication brought tears to Kurt's eyes. What could have happened to Sebastian to inspire such words? Kurt felt Sebastian's eyes on him, concerned over his silence. Kurt closed the book, returning it to its spot in the bookcase. Kurt moved down the line of shelves. Sebastian had managed to make this one space his own through photographs. Framed pictures stood scattered around – school pictures, team pictures, show choir pictures, Sebastian's mom when she was pregnant, a plethora featuring Sebastian and his mom together, Sebastian and his brother, Sebastian with his mom and brother, but of all the family photos there was only one that included his father, and it was tucked in the back behind other pictures, out of sight.

"Is this you?" Kurt asked, picking up a frame that held a lacrosse team photograph. He looked at the teenaged boys mugging for the camera, some with goofy smiles, and one with a signature smirk that Kurt had memorized.

It felt weird seeing that same exact smirk from this handsome young boy on the man who had fucked him earlier.

"Yeah," Sebastian laughed, looking over Kurt's shoulder. "That's me alright…and _that's_ Christian." Sebastian jabbed a finger square on the face of a blond boy standing in the back. He looked older than Sebastian in the photo, and about as cocky, though Sebastian's face had a certain innocence to it – an innocence that was lost in other photographs with later dates displayed. Kurt could see the appeal. Christian _was_ handsome in a kind of Abercrombie and Fitch, President of the Young Republicans, Captain of the Debate Team, representing the U.S. in the Model U.N. sort of way, but underneath that lurked a stuck-up trust fund baby who thought he could have anyone he wanted wrapped around his finger.

He had Sebastian there once, then he hurt and humiliated him.

Kurt knew that was in the past, but still, he hated this boy immediately.

Kurt put the frame down and looked from photograph to photograph, noticing how Sebastian changed over time, how his smile became more confident but less sincere, his eyes jaded. Sebastian said that he played Christian's game of deflowering boys all through high school – that he _excelled_ at it. Kurt wondered how many of the boys in these pictures felt the same way about Sebastian that Sebastian felt about Christian.

It gave Kurt pause, made him question why Sebastian would keep these pictures on display. Could he really be such a narcissist that the boys _he_ may have hurt didn't matter to him? It made Kurt shudder. No, he thought. Not _his_ Sebastian. But then it hit him that the Sebastian who put these pictures up wasn't _his_ Sebastian. He was a boy trying with all his might to meet his father's demands, to make a man that he despised proud. By those standards, these boys could have been trophies to Sebastian.

Or they could be reminders of a person he no longer wanted to be.

Kurt had kept his ghosts in a separate room with its own locked door. Sebastian kept his with him, out in the open, in his sight every day, slept beneath their eyes.

Kurt picked up another – this one of Sebastian with his mother and brother. She was a beautiful woman – not because of her wavy dark hair, her flawless complexion, or her impossible trim figure after two kids. She glowed with a kindness and compassion that these photographs blessedly captured, though it was more evident in the photos where she had her two true loves with her – her boys – than in the photos of Sebastian's mother alone. Kurt peered at the photograph, looking from Sebastian's face, to Richard's face, to their mother's face, and realized he had been wrong. He was wrong when he thought Sebastian had his father's cynical green eyes. Sebastian actually had his mother's eyes – thoughtful, intelligent, with a smile that hid itself in plain sight, luring everyone in, daring them to try and find it.

In Richard's face, Kurt saw traces of their father, but he didn't see their mother at all.

"If you want to hang up your stuff, you can take some space in the closet, gorgeous."

"Hmm?" Kurt bounced back from the photograph – from the mother and her sons beaming at him, dressed in clothes suitable for fall, standing in front of a scenic lake, trees nearby changing their coat of colors. "What was that?"

"I said if you want to hang up your clothes, you can have some space in the closet." Sebastian walked to a door between the bookcases and opened it. Lights inside turned on automatically. Kurt peeked in, trying not to act surprised, but his reaction was inevitable. This wasn't an ordinary closet. It was the closet of Kurt's dreams - a whole other room devoted solely to the storage of clothes.

"You have a walk-in closet?" Kurt asked, rushing in for inspection.

"Yeah," Sebastian answered sheepishly. "It's kind of required when you're rich. You know, to store all your useless shit in."

"Bite your tongue. Clothes aren't useless," Kurt called back. He walked the length of the closet from one end to the other, then from left to right, marveling at the space. "Oh my God! I think this is about the size of my first loft! You could seriously live in here!" Kurt heard Sebastian laugh from outside, but he didn't follow Kurt in. Kurt gave himself the tour, hoping to thumb through retro ensembles from Sebastian's sordid past, but the closet seemed practically bare except for the floor, cluttered (in an organized sort of way) with well-used sports equipment – skis, snowboards, a surfboard, helmets of all kinds, a pyramid of lacrosse equipment, and soccer balls, basketballs, and volleyballs, scuffed but kept clean, lined up in a row. But as for actual clothes, there was astonishingly little – navy blue blazers hung beside grey slacks (school uniforms, Kurt assumed, since they were identical to the ones in the photographs), a single row of jeans, another of polos, button-up shirts, some suits in garment bags. Sebastian had more designer label clothes than Kurt had ever owned, but in comparison to the room it was stored in, in comparison to what Kurt had expected, it seemed lacking. "Did you take everything with you when you left? Your closet's almost empty." Kurt felt it a safe question. Sebastian's father might have thrown the clothes out when he disowned his son, but then why leave Sebastian's other personal items?

"I wasn't all that into clothes too much when I was a teenager, to tell you the truth," Sebastian answered, still not coming in. "I attended a school that had uniforms and I lived in my practice clothes. Some guys I hung out with were really into clothes so I knew about designers and stuff, but other than that, it wasn't my thing."

"Well, if you had gone out with me in high school, it would have been your thing," Kurt said, appraising what little clothing Sebastian had hanging in his closet.

Sebastian smiled at the comment, but he couldn't bring himself to agree, because the boy he was in those photographs, unfortunately, would have made it his life's mission to make teenaged Kurt's life miserable.

Sebastian finally peeked in, needing to see his boyfriend and the cute way he was probably judging his past fashion sense. He caught Kurt holding a Marc Jacobs shirt up to his torso in front of a full-length mirror.

"I know it's not up to snuff, but feel free to borrow anything you'd like."

"I intend to," Kurt responded, twisting to get a better view from a different angle. Sebastian laughed.

"Of course you did."

Kurt wandered out of the closet minutes later carrying some choice items with him when he caught sight of something right in the doorway he hadn't noticed on his way in.

"You had a mini-fridge?" Mini-fridge was kind of an understatement. It wasn't a full-sized refrigerator, but it came up to Kurt's chest – and it was stainless steel. On a cabinet above it sat a convection oven. "But, you have a kitchenette."

"Yeah, but that's all the way down the hall. Completely inconvenient placement for late night burrito and root beer snacking."

Sebastian made a joke out of it, but Kurt had a hard time finding it funny. Factor in the various servants the Smythe family employed and theoretically Sebastian would never have to leave his wing.

He'd never have to see a single member of the household.

Or more specifically, _they_ would never have to see _him_.

Kurt wanted to travel back in time, hunt down teenaged Sebastian, and hug him for all he was worth.

Sebastian walked into the closet and opened the refrigerator door. It was plugged in and cold, and completely empty. Even though it was easy to see that there was nothing in it, he looked from shelf to shelf, then bent over to open the crisper drawers, searching for something. When he didn't find it, he closed the door, then opened up the cabinet below the convection oven. It was empty, too, except for one thing – an unopened bottle of Courvoisier. Sebastian grabbed the bottle by the neck and pulled it from the cabinet. He held it up so Kurt could see the etched word on the bottom of the glass.

"L'Essence," Sebastian read, tilting the bottle underneath the light, admiring the clarity of the amber liquid inside the pristinely cut crystal shaped like a teardrop.

"I'm not really a liquor drinker," Kurt admitted. Sebastian raised a skeptical brow, recalling the one time he saw Kurt drink himself sick off a bottle of Tequila. Kurt wasn't in the mood to reminisce, especially considering that night's connection to Blaine, so he let Sebastian's snide expression slide. "Is it any good?"

"It should be. It goes for about $3,000 a bottle."

Kurt nearly choked. The last time he splurged on a bottle of liquor, it cost around $50, and that's because it came in a bottle that looked like a Mexican sugar skull.

Yes, he bought fifty dollar Tequila because the bottle looked like a skull. He had no regrets.

But $3,000? Kurt could buy a used car for $3,000!

"My dad bought this for me when I got into Harvard," Sebastian continued, unaware of Kurt's inner turmoil over the high price of liquor. "He said we would open it when I graduated and took over the business."

Sebastian shook his head, lowering the bottle and putting it back on its lonely shelf in the empty cabinet.

Revelation after revelation, Kurt started seeing Sebastian in a different light. His boyfriend wasn't just an incredible guy who was brave and loyal and seemed to be utterly in love with him. He was a brilliant and talented adventure-seeker. He was an athlete. He was a dedicated son and brother. He was a privileged rich kid with daddy issues. He was a troubled teenager and the product of a broken home, even if that break might not be obvious to the casual outside observer.

But inside, Sebastian was the little boy who shaved his father's cats, begging for attention and approval he was never going to get.

"There was something else I wanted to show you," Sebastian said, running a hand down the cabinet door that held the bottle of liquor inside.

"Okay." Kurt gave Sebastian his brightest smile, hoping to lift the fog of sad that was descending quickly over them. He hung the clothes in his arms on a hook by the door and trailed behind Sebastian as they walked back into the bedroom. Sebastian led Kurt to the curtained French doors. He pulled the curtains apart and gestured for Kurt to open them.

"This is where I used to do my homework," Sebastian said, watching Kurt turn the lever door knobs. "Where I used to sit and read, and watch the sunset."

Kurt opened the double doors to what he knew would be a balcony. From the way Sebastian sounded, Kurt assumed this might be the heart of his room, the place he went to get away from it all, maybe the spot where he spent most of his time. Kurt opened the doors and took a step out, knowing before he saw it fully that it would be extravagant, but again, his imagination didn't do it justice.

Kurt had been on one other balcony before, at a hotel in New York that he went to for a photo session with Vogue. The balcony was maybe ten feet by ten feet, and looked out over midtown Manhattan. Kurt wasn't all that impressed by urban views, but he remembered it was nice - nice to be able to step outside and take breather, take a break from high-maintenance photographers and models. Everyone else used the small space to smoke cigarettes. By the end of the afternoon, it stank like an ashtray.

Still, it was nice.

Sebastian's balcony was much more than _nice_. It was glorious. A wrought iron railing surrounded a cobbled stone extension that jutted out and rounded at the edge, following the architecture of the house. It stretched from almost the front edge of this wing on the right to Sebastian's first window on the left, and furnished with wicker patio furniture - a futon with a red mattress cover, a round table and chairs, even a small barbecue.

A barbecue within twenty feet of the bedroom? That's a design feature Kurt knew his dad could really get behind. When the sun came up, he'd have to snap a picture and text it to him.

"Oh my God," Kurt said for the fiftieth time that night, their romp in the coat closet notwithstanding. "You had _this_ growing up? I had a bench seat next to a box window, and the window didn't even open."

"Yeah, it was pretty nice," Sebastian said, breathing in the night air with the slip of a smile making an appearance on his face.

"Did you and your friends party out here?" Kurt asked. He walked to the railing and leaned over an inch, perusing the estate, seeing if he could catch a glimpse of the race track Sebastian mentioned.

"Nah," Sebastian said, strolling up behind him. "I wasn't a fan of bringing people home. No one from school's ever been in my room. Besides, I didn't need parties to make myself popular."

Kurt understood Sebastian's insinuation. He knew why Sebastian was popular. He didn't like to think about it.

"Do you want to know one of my favorite parts about it?" Sebastian asked.

"Hmm, what?" Kurt closed his eyes and let the chill breeze kiss his skin. He felt Sebastian come up behind him, felt warmth surround him as Sebastian put his arms around his waist.

"That's her garden," Sebastian said quietly. Kurt opened his eyes, following Sebastian's gaze to a sectioned-off patch of green among the grass in front of them. Kurt had to narrow his eyelids to see it. It was overgrown – a tangled mass of weeds and unruly rose bushes – but Kurt could make out the once carefully tended rows, the ordered division of plants and flowers and vines that once bore vegetables and fruit. "She was out there every day – weeding it, watering it. It was her greatest source of joy, besides us kids." Sebastian sighed, the heat of his mouth caressing Kurt's skin as he spoke and breathed. "When she started to forget, it turned into that. My dad could have had our gardener take care of it, keep it going for her, or tear it out and replace it with fescue. It would have been simple, but this…this is a message." Sebastian chuckled dryly. "Probably for me. I mean, I'm the only one who can see this. It's one last dig. One last way to show that he's the big man on campus."

Kurt had heard Sebastian use that term before with regard to his father. How often had Cornelius hammered that into his son's skull? How much did that shape who Sebastian was today? Did he spend more time living up to his father's expectations, or living them down?

How much did Sebastian respect himself?

Kurt looked at the tract of land and couldn't help picturing his own garden at its peak, full of ripe tomatoes, peppers, and melons, and flowers in an array of spring and summer colors, growing almost to his stomach where he could gather them together without bending and put them in vases on every flat surface of his house. That picture faded, replaced by an image of the way his garden looked the last time he saw it - sliced to pieces, ruined, destroyed by someone else's anger, envy, and hate. When he first laid eyes on the destruction of his precious garden, of the thing he poured his love and affection into when he had no one to give that love to, before he had Sebastian, it felt as if someone had torn out a piece of his heart.

That's what this was – someone else's hate tearing out a piece of Sebastian's heart.

Sebastian left Kurt's side and walked back into the room. Kurt watched him go, followed him slowly, surprised that Sebastian hadn't passed out yet right where he stood. Sebastian dropped down onto the bed, staring at his hands in his lap. He looked smaller than usual – his shoulders and his head bent, his spine bowed, like a maranta leukoneura, closing up for the night. With a deep sigh, he reached for Kurt, knowing without raising his head that Kurt would be there. Kurt walked into Sebastian's room and closed the double doors, walked straight into Sebastian's embrace and let his boyfriend pull him down into his lap, let Sebastian squeeze him a little too tight.

"You feel like calling it a night?" Sebastian asked with his head against Kurt's chest.

"Yeah," Kurt said, kissing the top of Sebastian's head.

"Bathroom's through that door if you want to take a shower," Sebastian said, pointing in a vague direction. "I'd join you but…I'm not really up for it."

"That's alright," Kurt said. "To tell you the truth, neither am I. Besides, it wouldn't be the same without you."

"Yeah," Sebastian agreed softly. Sebastian sounded so worn down, so ready to pack it in. It made Kurt's heart ache.

"I still owe you a blowjob," Kurt reminded him. "You want it? It might take the edge off."

Sebastian inhaled in and then out again. He peeked up at Kurt and kissed his neck.

"Raincheck?" he said sadly. "I don't have the energy for anything right now. I'm sorry."

"No," Kurt said, rocking Sebastian gently. "Don't be sorry." Kurt felt Sebastian lean into him, felt him try to melt against him, but there was some invisible barrier erected that he couldn't get past. "You know, everything's going to be alright," Kurt whispered. "Whatever happens, we'll get through it together, the way we've gotten through everything, okay? Side by side."

Kurt didn't hear Sebastian respond, didn't feel him nod, and for a second he thought his boyfriend had fallen asleep.

"Promise?" Sebastian finally murmured, his voice shaky.

Kurt squeezed Sebastian tight, feeling that it was too little too late, but there was nothing else he could do.

"I promise," Kurt said, burying his nose in Sebastian's hair to hide his own shaky voice. "You jump, I jump. I promise."

* * *

><p>Kurt was asleep – he was sure he was – but he wasn't dreaming. He had knocked out quickly and was doing his best not to dream. He couldn't always control it, but it was something he had started working on long ago. It wasn't the ghosts of the past that he was evading this time. They took a back seat to everything else that had happened that evening. Kurt didn't want to relive the conversation from earlier. He didn't want to re-see a distasteful Cornelius ribbing and jabbing his son. He didn't want to remember the look of horror on Sebastian's face when he found out his mom was in a home. He just wanted to leave the angst of the night behind them and move on – move on with life and hope and joy.<p>

He wanted to make Sebastian happy again.

But in the darkness he had so coveted, he felt something pulling him awake – tugging at him with the hem of his shirt climbing up his stomach and the waistband of his pants creeping down his legs. Kurt sucked in a breath and the smell of alcohol filled his nostrils.

He held his breath.

It can't be. He can't be back there. He just can't be.

He stopped himself – stopped everything – and tried to think, followed the steps he'd taught himself (steps he learned from a website Sebastian found for him about dealing with anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) to center himself and calm down.

Where was he? Who was he with? What had he been doing right before he went to bed? Did he eat anything? Drink anything?

The last memory his exhausted mind held was of sitting in Sebastian's lap on the edge of the bed, holding his boyfriend in his arms.

That's right. He was with Sebastian…at Sebastian's house…in Sebastian's bed…and the man trying clumsily to take of his clothes _had_ to be Sebastian, even if he smelled like brandy.

"Sebastian?" Kurt murmured, raising heavy arms to put his hands over his boyfriend's. "Sebastian? Are you a'right? Wha-what's going on?"

Sebastian sniffled in the dark, his hands stopping.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian said, his voice slurring slightly. "I didn't…I didn't mean to wake you…I just needed to feel you…"

"It's alright," Kurt said, taking hold of the hem Sebastian was struggling to lift. "Here, let me help you."

Kurt pulled off his shirt the rest of the way and shoved off his pants. The moment his clothes disappeared from his body, Sebastian wrapped Kurt up in his arms. He held Kurt and nothing more. He buried his face in the crook of Kurt's neck and sobbed softly.

In Sebastian's arms, regardless of the tears and the murmuring, regardless of the unusual tang of alcohol clinging to his breath, regardless of the things that would normally set Kurt's alarms off, Kurt drifted quickly to sleep.

Kurt had known monsters, and Sebastian was no monster.

Sebastian had a heart full of love. Kurt knew he would be safe.


End file.
